Category: Aid

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a wave of donations and exports of Chinese-made medical products around the world, including in Africa. And while in many cases these much-needed supplies were met with gratitude, in both social and traditional media in Africa, concerns were raised about the ...

The establishment of a diplomatic relationship between Malawi and China in 2007 has seen China provide medical training of doctors, nurses, and health managers, sending medical teams from China and offering different specialist clinical services to hospital patients. China’s commitment to ...

Daisy Kambandu, the country program manager for the Chinese-run Agricultural Technology Demonstration Center (ATDC) in Zambia, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss China's unconventional approach to agricultural assistance. In contrast to most traditional aid programs, ATDCs like the one near Lusaka ...

China's fledgling aid agency, CIDCA, will have nearly half its budget slashed this year due to the ongoing economic slowdown brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak. CIDCA is by no means alone -- the central government unveiled across-the-board cuts for the remainder the year, ...

A Chinese People's Liberation Army cargo plane landed Wednesday to deliver $300,000 worth of COVID-19 PPE and other medical supplies. The PLA donated the material to their counterparts in the Rwandan Defense Force.  It's not clear from the statement on the ...

Regular readers of this newsletter may have noticed a new trend. In recent weeks, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian has mentioned Beijing's COVID-19 medical relief to Africa in almost every one of his regular press briefings.  The questions ...

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday that all African countries will be able to procure COVID-19 medical supplies shipped from China through a new central gateway. “What we are now doing, is to set up a procurement platform, which we are going to launch next week, ...

Several months ago, on a bus ride spanning the provinces of southern Mozambique, I passed a seemingly infinite number of advertisements painted on the walls of homes and stores when I suddenly passed one that I had not seen before – a hand-painted advertisement featuring Chinese and ...

Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone on Friday with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa. The bulk of the discussion, according to a summary published by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was what one would expect:

“Chinese embassy staffs in local countries said we are a non-governmental organization and won’t help us with anything, while many local NGOs and journalists see us as some kind of ‘Chinese government propaganda’ and they’re very rude towards us. It’s so difficult,” said Ms. Zhang, a 50-year-old ...

In another sign that Beijing is paying more attention to COVID-19 in Africa, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi appears to be increasing the frequency of his outreach to his African counterparts. This week alone he held two phone conferences with ministers from Angola and Ethiopia. 

China's once again ramping up its COVID-19 donation diplomacy efforts in Africa. After dialing down their efforts for a couple of weeks, the pace of announcements of new medical team deployments, PPE donations and charitable contributions from Chinese private sector stakeholders have all gone up considerably this ...