By Ikenna Emewu and Shen Hong

Following extensive consultation from both China and Africa, the 13th Meeting of the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum(CATTF) last week released the “Africa-China Dar es Salaam Consensus.”

The strategic policy document titled “Consensus Among African and Chinese Think Tanks on Deepening Global Development Cooperation” was the outcome of over 100 experts from more than 40 countries whose expertise centres on China-Africa relations.

The CATTF was hosted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania at the behest of the Zhejiang Normal University’s Institute of African Studies, one of the pioneers of such in China.

Participants in the 13^th Meeting drawn from academia, the diplomatic community, journalists, technocrats, and other experts, did a positive evaluation of the strategic document. 

Currently, as multipolarity accelerates and international power dynamics undergo profound adjustments, a “new globalization” mainly driven and led by forces from the Global South is emerging. As a result, human society requires increased interdependence, greater wisdom, and a broader consensus in knowledge and ideology.

Tech, the way to go

The release of the Consensus comes at an opportune moment, the body noted.

As one of the signatories of this Consensus, Prof. Justin Yifu Lin, Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University, attended an online interview with reporters from over 30 international media groups on March 10, 2024, soon after the forum ended.

Before fielding questions from the journalists, Lin, a foremost international economist and former vice president of the World Bank said “I will be very happy to share with you my understanding of the importance of this consensus, and I hope it can contribute to further development in African countries, as well as the realization of SDG and other important global development initiatives.” 
“This consensus is from us, the Global South, reflecting our ideas and our commitment to deliver a better future through our cooperation,” he added.
He further explained that “raising productivity is the key to improving the well-being of the African people, but how do we collectively realize it.”

Lin noted that “it is a must to have new technology in all the sectors of our production chain and economic system now. Also, industrialization in the countries is needed. We need to use better modern technology to raise the level of productivity and push back poverty.”

Looking beyond agriculture
To become a high-income country, Lin coached that “relying on agriculture alone is insufficient. We need to shift away from agriculture towards manufacturing, climb up the manufacturing sectors ladder, then gradually move towards high-value added services.”
Prof. Lin was quite frank in pointing out the challenges and obstacles for Africa and China to implement the Consensus.

He said that one challenge is certain: “We need to have a peaceful global environment, and it's very important to have the right ideas for improvement in many areas. Joining hands together and understanding development are the foundation for achieving the goals.” The university don emphasized the importance of joint efforts and knowledge sharing in overcoming the difficulties.

Need for more financing
”Currently, developing countries are lagging in many indicators, and they need to make more efforts. But to make those efforts possible, certainly, we need to have more financial support for the multilateral development institutions. The Consensus suggests promoting reform of the international financial system, for instance, the multilateral development banks should be given more resources to increase their capital so they can give more support to the developing countries.” 

How to strengthen economic and financial security cooperation between both sides was also an issue of concern to the reporters, regarding the implementation of the Consensus.

On this arduous challenge, Lin thinks that the injection of private capital is necessary. He stressed that we need to pay attention to financial stabilization. “For a developing country, we need to have monitoring of our capital account, especially for those kinds of short-term capital. A healthy domestic economy makes the project bankable and also profitable.”