DAR ES SALAAM, March 17 (NNN-DAILYNEWS) — THE 13th Meeting of the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum was successfully held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on March 8.
More than 300 people attended the event both online and offline, including representatives of international organizations operating in Tanzania, diplomatic envoys, government officials, think tank scholars, media reporters, and entrepreneurs from China and 49 African countries.
The event was hosted by the Secretariat of the Chinese Follow-up Committee of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and co-organized by Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU), the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United Republic of Tanzania, the Department of Foreign Affairs of Zhejiang Provincial People’s Government, and Jinhua Municipal People’s Government.
The meeting ended with great success and yielded significant results. Following extensive consultation from both sides, the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum issued the ‘Africa-China Dar es Salaam Consensus’ document.
The Consensus document comprises eight specific agreements, prioritizing development, global multipolarity, economic globalization, international financial reform, sustainable development, endogenous development momentum, global security development, and knowledge sharing for development.
These agreements provide significant guidance and principles for human development, with a lasting impact on deepening China-Africa cooperation and global development collaboration.
The Africa-China Dar es Salaam Consesus calls on the international community to deepen development cooperation based on the principles of mutual respect, solidarity, win-win cooperation, openness, and common prosperity, thereby enhancing knowledge-sharing, ideological consensus as well as cultural co-prosperity.
The consensus aims to encourage countries to collaborate towards modernization and foster a community with a shared future for humanity. These eight specific agreements are important and have provided a new vision for cooperation between China and Africa towards the upcoming 9th FOCAC summit.
The consesus has also pointed out the way to curb the existing challenges and activate more consultative cooperation. In order for Africa and China to have sustainable and mutually beneficial cooperation, it is necessary to advocate the common values of peace, development, fairness, justice and implement Global Development Initiative.
The two side need to support each other and enhance deplomatic dialogue rather than conflicts and exchanging governance experiences.
It should be noted that, the deterioration of Africa’s development and peace is mainly caused by internal political conflicts and external iterference as well as the lack of unity and cooperation among African countries in preventing and resolving their internal and regional conflicts.
Africa’s failure to have a unified position has been the main source of the continent’s problems and the cause of the economic development slow down.
Therefore, for African countries to achieve a lasting peace and their independent developmen, they must first be united, have one common position and common understanding to be able to resolve their internal problems and prevent future conflicts from occurring.
Thus, it is the responsibility of every country to ensure that they work together to end all regional and internal political conflicts in their countries. It is worth noting that, apart from the size and wealth of the Africa continent, however, this continent still has no voice or representation in any of the world systems.
In order for Africa to have a voice and representation in the world systems, those systems must be reformed, so to increase the representation sit and voice for the developing countries. In advocating this, China has been at the forefront in representing African countries and is fighting for them to ensure that they have representation and voice in the international systems.
So, African countries need to cooperate more closely with China and they should have a strong common position in supporting China’s efforts to fight for their place in the international system.
Among other thing, the Consesus document requires all countries to respect and defend each others’ sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the right to development. As is the prictise and behavior of Western countries to interfere in the internal affairs of other country, they have also been and still continue to interfere in the internal affairs of African countries, forcing them to comply with their demands,rules and orders.
This tendency of interfering in the internal affairs of other contries, has been a major source of the emergence of many conflicts in the developing countries including Africa.
Therefore, the new reached Dar es Slaam Consesus strongly opposes any form of interference policy and prohibits China and African countries from imitating this behavior. In promoting a mutually beneficial and inclusive economic globalization to share the benefits of development, China and Africa have agreed to strengthen international economic governance, remove trade and economic barriers, and establish a more resilient, inclusive and efficient global chain.
As we all know, economic sanctions and trade barriers have been a major obstacle to the world’s economic development including that of China and Africa.
These economic sanctions and trade barriers have been holding back the development of the targeted countries and weakening the development of the people and the world as a whole. Due to the effects of these sanctions and trade barriers, Africa countries must and should stop imposing sanctions against each other.
Instead, they need to find the best way and prioritize diplomacy in resolving their conflicts rather than relying on economic sanctions which harms and weaken the economy of the country concern. In order to promote the development of their countries and improve the lives of their people, China and Africa need to strengthen their trade and economic cooperation, develop modern industries and agriculture in order to make a positive contribution to promoting the economic cycle of their countries.
To achieve this, it is necessary for both countries to remove all kinds of trade barriers between them and forge ahead by creating a common markets and free trade zones.
It is also important to note that, for African countries to strengthen their high-quality sustainable development bonds, they should implement the inernational initiaves as well as their national plans.
By implementing international initiaves like that of China’s Global Development Initiative (DGI), Belt and Road Initiave (BRI), Global Security Initiative ( GSI), Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) along with other initiatives offerd by China through FOCAC, African countries will be able to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and AU Agenda 2063.
The implementation of international initiative including that of China, will enable African countrices to bridge their infrastructure shortage, make peace and bring sustainable development in their countries.
So, African countries should take advantage and seize all the opportunities offerd by China through FOCAC, BRI and other initiatives.
China is ready and has been supporting Africa in achieving its true independence in thought and concept, helps Africa enhance its capacity for independent development, and is supporting Africa in achieving its modernization process.
Therefore, African countries should work and implement all the resolutions and agreements reached at the China-Africa Think Tanks Dar es Salaam Consensus. Also, they should use this forum to improve relations and strengthen cooperation with China in all fields so to benefit and learn from its success and experience. — NNN-DAILYNEWS
