KAGWANJA: Sino-African summit should prioritize link between security and corruption

Endemic corruption breeds insecurity. Recognizing that the corruption-security nexus was rapidly turning into an existential threat to development and national stability, the African Union adopted the theme "Winning the fight against corruption: a sustainable path to transforming the world." Africa "for its recently concluded summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania, from June 25 to July 2, 2018.

The Corruption-Security Link should also appear in the meetings of the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing beginning September 2018.

Like other investors in Africa, China also fears more and more that the mixture of corruption and insecurity is eroding the gains made in development cooperation over the last four decades.

Up to now, the link between corruption and security is present in the preparatory discussions. FOCAC 2018 Summit Meetings.

One of the most important support events of the FOCAC Summit is the 7th China-Africa Think Tank Meeting (CATTF), held in Beijing from July 4 to 5, 2018 The meeting, organized under the theme: "China-Relations with Africa during Reforms and Opening", emphasized the need to share "governance experiences."

SOCIALISM
Significantly, the CATTF meeting and the FOCAC 2018 summit coincide with the 40th anniversary of "Reform and Opening" under the presidency of Deng Xiaoping from 1978. Over the last four decades, socialism with Chinese characteristics Beijing has catapulted the country to the second largest economy in the world, enabling it to release more than 700 million people

The CATTF meeting has allowed Chinese and African academics, media personalities, African political thinkers and diplomats check the impact of China's economic reforms and open Sino-African relations over the past 40 years.

Over the past four decades, Africa and China have expanded their interpersonal relationships. More than two million Chinese and Africans move between the two countries each year. To expand its soft power capacity, China has opened more than 80 Confucius Institutes in 41 African countries.

Provide China's development support contest to Africa is the Agenda 2063, the continent's development plan. Since President Xi unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, African countries have been part of more than 60 countries benefiting from the $ 1.2 trillion initiative

. projects carried out under this initiative include the Mombasa-Nairobi railway), the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad (Ethiopia) (January 2018) and the 186.5-kilometer Abuja-Kaduna railway line in Nigeria (July 2018) ).

China has become Africa's largest trading partner since 2009. According to China Customs statistics In January 2018, the value of China-Africa trade amounted to US $ 16.5 billion. .

China is also the largest creditor of Africa. In 2015, at the Sixth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), President Xi pledged $ 60 billion in commercial loans to Africa, increasing loans to at least $ 20 billion a year.

China and its African allies invoked the shared history of solidarity, mutual respect, equality and win-win scenarios to overthrow Western propaganda that Beijing is the new colonizer of the Africa

China has used the strategy of "peaceful development" to counter Francis Fukuyama's thesis. and Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" argument. The idea gave birth to President Xi's doctrine of building a "shared destiny community" for humanity.

Through the framework of FOCAC, China has helped to strengthen the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) stability. In this regard, China has funded all of the $ 200 million AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as an appropriate gift to Africa.

The footprint of China's security has expanded. He has more than 2,000 peacekeepers in five UN operations, contributing to the largest troops in Africa and negotiating peace behind the scenes.

In January 2016, China established a military base in Djibouti. In addition, Beijing sent its health professionals to Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2014 and June 2018 respectively to combat Ebola outbreaks

The FOCAC 2018 Summit offers China and other countries Africa an ideal platform to share experiences and lessons. to tackle civil wars, terrorism and extremism, and political uncertainty and instability related to elections as well as endemic corruption that now undermine investor confidence and the sustainability of development projects.

The FOCAC 2018 Summit must also address the mechanisms for effective management of new railways and highways in order to generate profits to pay off debts.

Africa faces the risk of a new debt burden for China. The FOCAC 2018 must accelerate the industrialization of Africa, including by investing in industrial parks and new development corridors, to enable economies to repay their debts.

FOCAC 2018 must ensure that mbadive resources for intensive infrastructure projects do not fuel corruption and political patronage.

The next FOCAC summit should find concrete ways to help African countries implement the African Union (AU) Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (2003), which deals with corruption in the public and private sectors. Professor Peter Kagwanja is the CEO of the Africa Policy Institute. This article is an excerpt from a speech delivered at the 7th China-Africa Thought Forum under the theme: "Sino-African relations in the process of opening", Beijing, China, 4-5 July 2018 [19659026] .fbAsyncInit = function () {FB.init ({appId: "174023979648743", xfbml :! 0, version: "v2.5")}; (function (d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d .getElementsByTagName (s) [0]; if (d.getElementById (id)) {return} js = d.createElement (s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs)}(document,'script',&#39 ; facebook-jssdk & # 39;)) [ad_2]
Source link