Category: Development
Africa to Receive a Second Batch of COVID-19 Medical Supplies From Chinese Billionaire Jack Ma
Alibaba founder and philanthropist Jack Ma announced on Monday that more donations are on their way to help African countries contain the spread of COVID-19. The latest batch of material is more focused on supplying badly-needed medical equipment, including ventilators and thermometers, rather than the Personal Protective ...
Amid Mounting Fury Over the Arrival of a Chinese Medical Team, Nigerian Leaders Agree to Some Ground Rules
New ground rules have been set for the 18-member Chinese medical team that is expected to arrive in Nigeria sometime this week to help the country combat the spread of COVID-19. Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, met with health ministry officials on Monday to determine the ...
Huawei Expands Teleconference Equipment Donations to West Africa
The Chinese technology giant Huawei expanded its equipment donation program from East Africa, where it provided the health ministries in Kenya and Uganda with thermal image scanners and video conferencing systems, to West Africa. The company donated a pair of fully-equipped video conferencing systems to the Ghanaian ...
China Turns to Video Conferencing to Provide COVID-19 Training and Assistance for Doctors in Mozambique
Chinese medical experts from the West China Hospital of Sichuan University recently convened a two-hour training session via teleconference with their counterparts from Maputo Central Hospital in Mozambique. The seminar, that reportedly came at the request of the Mozambican government, focused on the Chinese doctors' experience in ...
China Sends Medical Teams to Africa as Part of New, Stepped-up Aid Push
China is boosting its COVID-19 aid efforts in Africa by sending medical teams to various countries and also connecting local health providers across the continent with infectious disease experts back in China. The deployment of medical personnel to countries like Algeria and, soon, Nigeria, is part of ...
The Future of Chinese Rail Financing in Africa
China famously lent billions of dollars to countries across Africa to build expensive, new railways. Nigeria, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya all used loans from Beijing to build new lines using a standard gauge (SGR) that will one day ...
Malawian Farmers Need More Than Just Training to Boost Crop Yields
Drive 35km south from Salima town, in the central region of Malawi you will see a signpost on the side of the road that reads “China Aid Malawi Agriculture Technology Development Centre”. And then you drive another 500 meters from ...
David Ndii: “Coronavirus Will be the Final Nail in the Coffin of “Infrastructure-led Growth”
Economist David Ndii, one of Kenya's leading political economy thinkers, a popular columnist and a longtime critic of the government's policy of borrowing heavily from China to build infrastructure, conducted a fascinating hour-long interview with Kenyan philosopher Joseph Kabuthi ...
Africans Worry About Quality of Donated Chinese COVID-19 Aid Following Reports of Defective Masks in Europe
Earlier this week I wrote a story about the reputational risks associated with China's so-called "Mask Diplomacy" initiative where it's donating millions of PPE to countries around the world. The basic premise of the story is that if everything goes well, then China wins, but ...
China’s COVID-19 Donation Spree Picks Up Pace in Africa
China's embassies across Africa are coordinating both public and private donations to local stakeholders battling the spread of COVID-19. The donations appear to be part of a larger Chinese strategy to raise Beijing's profile as a leading provider of humanitarian assistance, particularly to lesser developed countries.
Chinese Companies in Zimbabwe Pay for Major Renovation of Harare’s Main COVID-19 Care Center
Workers at Harare's central medical center, Wilkins Hospital, are putting the final touches on a major renovation project that was funded by Chinese companies operating in Zimbabwe. It's not immediately clear which companies were involved in the half-million-dollar upgrade of the ...
COVID-19 and the Crisis of National Development
COVID-19’s rapid move from warning sign to global pandemic has yanked the spotlight onto a number of questions humanity has been uneasily avoiding for years. Beyond the human-focused ones like how to keep a global economy running when flights are shut down, it has also drawn attention ...














