Institute of Development Studies

China and Africa – Development Cooperation in the Era of Global Financial Crisis

5 June 2009 

China's economic relationships with Africa are intensifying. Chinese from the both public and private world are engaging more than ever with Africa's development – through trade, investment and aid – and within Africa there are high expectations of the benefits this will create. A joint workshop organised by IDS and the International Poverty Reduction Centre in China (IPRCC), in Beijing on 5 June, is exploring the issues around this relationship and the potential impact the Global Financial Crisis may have on it.

Leading researchers and policymakers - including representatives from African embassies, multilateral and bilateral organisations, and Chinese universities - are asking whether new agendas could encourage the many state and business actors from China and in Africa to work together in order to maximise the mutual benefits of this relationship. They are exploring whether the financial crisis could change the ways that China deals with Africa and how/where these changes might take place.

Jing Gu, IDS researcher and co-convener of the workshop, has been leading a pioneering project which explores the motivations behind the huge up-swell of private Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa. As part of this work she is exploring the serious policy challenges which Chinese private enterprises pose to Africa. High economic growth in China has come at a ‘high social and environmental cost’ and Dr Gu warns of the dangers of similar patterns in Africa.

Chinese firms tend to network with one another for supplies and can face difficulties in integrating with local suppliers and labour because of issues of quality and cost and African governments often approach the problems of interaction with quite strict labour quota laws enforced through immigration controls. There is a need to build connections between Chinese private enterprise and African civil society, unions, local governments and chambers of commerce. Chinese embassies and chambers of commerce are themselves often working at this level to ensure the development of good relations between African communities and Chinese business communities that are in Africa to stay.

The key aims of the workshop are to:

• Provide up-to-date and comprehensive analysis and information on China's evolving public and private sector relationship with Africa, informed by empirical research and analysis;
• Provide an in-depth analysis and reporting back, of the nature of Chinese private sector investment in Africa, based on recent research and extensive interview research with Chinese companies in China and in Africa and with national and provincial policymakers in China;
• Explore the scope for Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to promote Chinese investment in Africa and to enhance the benefits to local economies of this investment;
• Consider the implications of the global financial crisis for China's relationship with Africa and for broader development cooperation between China and African countries in the context of the changing place of Chinese industry and commerce in the global political economy, its movement up the global value chain and the possibilities of stimulating the upward movement of the value chain in Africa; 
• Draw on the lessons from Chinese development that might increase the contribution China makes to economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa;
• Provide a forum for exchange of ideas between Chinese, overseas and African researchers and policymakers about the rapidly changing China-African relationships;
• Identify key areas for further research and key policy challenges in the areas of public and private sector collaboration and in state-civil society interchange at national and provincial and cross national-provincial government levels.

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