Leaders from China and Africa come together to build stronger and healthier communities

Leaders from African countries and China met in Beijing, China, during the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) to accelerate the social and economic development of Africa.

Under the theme of “China and Africa: toward an even stronger community with a shared future through win-win cooperation”, the two-day summit served to further enhance Africa–China collaboration in eight key areas: industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity-building, health care, people-to-people exchanges and peace and security. China’s President, Xi Jinping, also announced a US$ 60 billion package of aid, investments, and loans to Africa.

During the official opening, the President of China emphasized that Africa has a lot of potential and is a continent full of hope. He said that China would launch a health-care initiative and that information cooperation and exchange on public health would be intensified. Cooperation programmes will be launched on the prevention and control of emerging and re-emerging communicable diseases, schistosomiasis, HIV and malaria.

Leaders agreed the Beijing Declaration and the Beijing Action Plan, which will serve as a blueprint for further cooperation between China and Africa in the next three years. The outcome documents, which list ending AIDS and halting and reversing HIV (together with tuberculosis and malaria) as part of the China–Africa health cooperation, also focus on sustainability in health and included the local production of medicines in Africa, strengthening systems and developing public health worker capacity as essential to achieving universal health care.

Original source: UNAIDS
Published on 10 September 2018