Building the Path to Modernization Together
Composing a New Chapter in China-Africa Cooperation

By: Chinese Ambassador Yu Dunhai

The G20 Summit was held in South Africa from 22 to 23 November, 2025. This marked the first time a G20 Summit has taken place on the African continent. The aspirations of African countries for independent development were deeply integrated into the global development agenda, and the voice of the Global South resounded throughout the Johannesburg Nasrec Expo Centre. This summit was a victory for multilateralism, a victory for the Global South, and above all, a victory for Africa.

During the summit, China and South Africa jointly launched the Initiative on Cooperation Supporting Modernization in Africa. The Initiative both carries forward the traditional friendly cooperation between China-Africa, and makes an important contribution to the global development agenda. It demonstrates the firm resolve and responsibility of China and Africa to march forward hand in hand in the new era, injects strong momentum into the development and revitalization of the African continent, and draws a new blueprint for building a China-Africa community with a shared future.

Ten years ago, on December 4, 2015, during the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China was willing to jointly implement with Africa the Ten Cooperation Plans, with a focus on helping Africa address three major development bottlenecks of lagging infrastructure, talent shortages and funding gaps. These efforts aimed to accelerate industrialization and agricultural modernization, achieving independent and sustainable development. This was the first time China explicitly proposed supporting Africa in accelerating its industrialization and agricultural modernization, ushering in a new phase of China-Africa cooperation.

Over the past decade, China has honored its commitments, continuously expanded its investment in Africa, and driven fruitful outcomes in China-Africa cooperation in areas such as industrialization and agricultural modernization. From the Ten Cooperation Plans to the Eight Major Actions, and onward to the Ten Partnership Actions in the new era, China’s cooperation mechanisms with Africa have been continuously refined, with cooperation domains steadily expanded.

China has provided hundreds of billions of RMB in aid to Africa and implemented a large number of major projects benefiting the people, creating millions of jobs for Africa. With China’s support, Africa’s infrastructure, including railways, highways and ports, has seen significant improvement. Its industrialization is progressing steadily, while agricultural technology have continuously improved. All this fully demonstrates China’s sincere willingness and practical results in supporting Africa’s modernization.

The Initiative on Cooperation Supporting Modernization in Africa, jointly proposed by China and South Africa, inherits and develops President Xi Jinping’s important propositions. It reflects the continuity and stability of China’s policy toward Africa, highlighting the distinctive features of China-Africa cooperation in keeping pace with the times and pursuing pragmatic innovation. Grounded in Africa’s actual needs and aligned with the laws of modernization, the Initiative establishes a comprehensive and multi-level cooperation framework. Its core content can be summarized as Six Major Principles and Six Major Directions.

In terms of cooperation principles, the Initiative upholds six major principles, which are justice and equitability, openness and win-win, putting the people first, diversity and inclusiveness, sustainable development, underpinned by peace and security. It explicitly respects the sovereignty and independent choices of African countries, adheres to non-interference in internal affairs, supports “African solutions to African problems”, advocates an open and inclusive cooperation model, and ensures that the benefits of cooperation truly reach the African people.

In terms of cooperation directions, the Initiative focuses on six key areas of Africa’s modernization: the first, it aims to achieve modernization that is just and equitable, by upholding the principle of “Africa-initiated, Domestic Ownership, and Africa-led”, supporting African countries in exploring development paths suited to their national conditions, strengthening exchanges on governance experience and conceptual alignment, and promoting reform of the international financial system. The second, it aims to achieve modernization that is open and win-win, by supporting the signing of agreements on economic partnership for shared development between African countries and China, increasing the added value of African mineral resources, deepening industrial and supply chain cooperation, boosting infrastructure investment, conducting innovation cooperation, and promoting high-quality cooperation. The third, it aims to achieve modernization that puts people first, by focusing on food security, health, poverty reduction and other livelihood areas, and supporting the development of regional value chains. The fourth, it aims to achieve modernization that is diverse and inclusive, by strengthening people-to-people exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, expanding cooperation in education, youth development, women’s empowerment and other fields, and promoting harmonious coexistence among different civilizations.

The fifth, it aims to achieve modernization that is eco-friendly, by supporting Africa’s green and low-carbon transformation, strengthening cooperation in clean energy, disaster prevention and mitigation and other areas, and assisting Africa in achieving sustainable development. The sixth, it aims to achieve modernization underpinned by peace and security, by conducting early cooperation under the Global Security Initiative, supporting African countries in building collective security mechanisms, and supporting making special arrangements on the United Nations Security Council reform to meet Africa’s aspiration as a priority.

The Initiative links the Ubuntu spirit and pan-Africanism with the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, representing an innovative exploration of integrating African philosophy and Chinese wisdom into international consensus. It provides new opportunities for Africa’s modernization endeavors and serves as a vivid practice of building China-Africa community with a shared future: the first, the Initiative enriches the connotations of the China-Africa community with a shared future in the new era. As the first multilateral initiative jointly launched by China and Africa and oriented toward Africa’s modernization, it elevates China-Africa relations from traditional economic cooperation to a new height of comprehensive modernization partnerships, driving an upgrade from project alignment to strategic synergy in China-Africa cooperation.

The second, the Initiative provides a comprehensive solution for Africa to address its development challenges. Unlike traditional aid models, it targets the root causes of Africa’s development issues and strives to enhance the endogenous driving force of African economies through measures such as industrial chain cooperation, infrastructure construction and capacity building. The third, the Initiative sets a model for Global South cooperation. By advocating principle of wide consultation, joint construction, and shared benefits, as well as the philosophy of openness and inclusiveness, it exemplifies the spirit of solidarity and collaboration among the Global South, provides a new paradigm for the international community to support Africa’s development and contributes to the building of a more just and equitable global governance system. The fourth, the Initiative offers an important pathway for sharing the outcomes of Chinese modernization.

By sharing its own modernization experience, China facilitates the flow of technology, funds and talent to Africa, which not only helps Africa accelerate its development but also create conditions for Chinese enterprises to explore markets and achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. This model of cooperation that highlights two-way commitment enables China and Africa to empower each other in their modernization processes and jointly drives a wave of modernization in the Global South.

As one of Africa’s major economies with the largest population, Nigeria is a key force in Africa’s modernization process and an important partner in China-Africa cooperation. Joint efforts between China and Nigeria will undoubtedly provide strong momentum for the implementation of the Initiative and make significant contributions to Africa’s modernization. To this end, the two sides should leverage their complementary advantages, focus on key areas, deepen cooperation in infrastructure and interconnectivity, strengthen agricultural and food security cooperation, advance industrial chain and digital economy cooperation, strengthen livelihood improvement and capacity-building cooperation, expand green development and ecological conservation, and explore pragmatic cooperation in peace and security, creating a model for China-Africa cooperation.

Looking to the future, as long as China and Africa uphold the principles of sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith, and adhere to the principles of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, we will surely turn the blueprint of the Initiative on Cooperation on Supporting Modernization in Africa into reality. This will yield more fruitful results for China-Africa cooperation along the path of modernization, inject more impetus into global development and jointly write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Building the Path to Modernization Together
Composing a New Chapter in China-Africa Cooperation

NUJ renews calls for completion of Gombe Press Centre

The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), has renewed its call on Gov Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State to complete its Press Centre in the state.

Former National Secretary of the NUJ, Comrade Shuaibu Usman Leman who made the call in Gombe on Monday said the presence of such facility would help journalists practising in the state.

Leman made the call shortly after an inspection tour of projects in the state as part of activities to commemorate the Gombe State NUJ Council Press Week.
He said that the facility would complete other development strides being recorded in the state.

According to him, with Gombe State’s growing status as an emerging mega state, it ought to have a Press Centre to ensure the comfort of journalists towards effectively carrying out their responsibility in the state.

“The other most important thing I would say is the NUJ Press Centre. Gombe will be 30 years next year without an NUJ Press Centre.

“As NUJ national secretary, I have visited every state in Nigeria and Gombe State is one of the three states without such facility.

“I hope that my visit here today will be a sign of good hopes for journalists in Gombe State.

“The governor should move in fast; it is not enough for us to commend him for all the facilities we have seen but journalists do not have a press centre to fall back in.

“Ideally after this inspection we should go back to the press centre and socialise and relax but unfortunately we don’t have.

“I hope Gov. Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State will be listening to us and I believe he will do something about that,” he said.
Speaking on the inspected projects, Leman said Gombe State is rapidly becoming a Mega state in view of the facilities and infrastructure being provided in the state.

He particularly commended the effort of Yahaya for initiating and providing five mega schools with good facilities to accommodate more school children, stressing that such move remained key towards addressing the challenge of out-of-school children in Northern Nigeria.

He further lauded the progress in reclaiming degraded land in Gombe State through the implementation of ACReSAL Projects in the state.

Leman urged journalists in the state not to renege on their responsibility of holding government accountable to the people.

He, however, cautioned journalists against becoming an opposition to the government, stressing that, journalists’ jobs were not by “being adversarial to the government that we will be doing our jobs; if they (government) do well, commend them and encourage them to do more.”

Also speaking, the NUJ Zonal Vice President for Zone E, Comrade Zare Baba, applauded Yahaya’s administration for maintaining constructive engagement with the media, stressing that such collaboration would enhance transparency while reinforcing public trust.

Mr Faruq Muazu, the Chairman of the NUJ Gombe State Council commended journalists in the state for their professionalism and positive impacts towards the development of the state.

Muazu reaffirmed the union’s resolve to sustain advocacy efforts for the completion of the NUJ Press Centre.

The 2025 Press Week continues on Tuesday with the official opening ceremony and a public lecture, followed by environmental and medical outreach activities later in the week.

ECOWAS Unveils Comprehensive Digital Ecosystem for Gender Development at Regional Workshop in Senegal

By: Michael Mike

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has launched a new Digital Ecosystem for the ECOWAS Centre for Gender Development (CCDG), marking a major step toward improving regional data management and collaboration on gender equality.

The unveiling took place during a five-day regional capacity-building workshop holding from 24 to 28 November 2025 in Saly, Senegal.

The workshop, convened under the supervision of the ECOWAS Commissioner for Human Development and Social Affairs, brought together gender experts, national focal points, technical staff of the ECOWAS Commission, and representatives of partner organisations.

The newly launched CCDG Digital Ecosystem comprises five interconnected platforms: the CCDG website, the ECOWAS Gender Equality Observatory (ECOGO), a virtual workspace, an artificial-intelligence–powered support system and the CCDG web security command centre.

According to officials, the digital system is designed to simplify real-time data collection, improve reporting consistency across Member States, and strengthen joint action on gender initiatives throughout the region.

By the end of the workshop, the Digital Ecosystem is expected to become fully institutionalised, enabling ECOWAS Member States and the Commission to use the platforms for more accurate monitoring, evidence-based policymaking, and more effective coordination of gender-related programmes.

Participants included CCDG Gender Focal Points from all ECOWAS Member States, personnel from ECOWAS institutions and agencies, national teams of the “50 Million African Women Speak” initiative, members of the Community of Practice on Gender and Climate Change, civil society organisations, development partners, and media representatives.

Facilitators emphasised that the launch is not only a technological advancement but also a strategic investment in strengthening gender governance across West Africa.

The Economic Community of West African States was established in 1975 with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos by 15 West African Heads of State and Government, with the goal of promoting economic integration and cooperation across the region. Cabo Verde joined in 1977, while Mauritania—initially a founding member—withdrew in 2000 and later signed an associate membership agreement in 2017.
On 29 January 2025, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formally exited the bloc.

Current ECOWAS Member States include: Benin, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Togo.

Recognised as one of the building blocks of the African Economic Community, ECOWAS aims to promote collective self-sufficiency, strengthen trade integration, and eliminate barriers to regional unity. Its work spans multiple sectors including industry, transport, telecommunications, agriculture, energy, natural resources, finance, and social development.

The ECOWAS Secretariat was restructured into a Commission in 2007, headed by a President and supported by a Vice President, Commissioners, and an Auditor-General. The organisation’s budget is sustained largely through the Community Levy—a 0.5% charge on imports from non-ECOWAS countries.

Ongoing reforms and programmes are geared toward achieving ECOWAS’ long-term transformation agenda: transitioning from an “ECOWAS of States” to an “ECOWAS of the People: Peace and Prosperity for All” by 2050.
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