China committed to common development, anti-pandemic cooperation

Officials with the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) briefed China's anti-COVID assistance and international development cooperation at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on Oct. 26.

Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas was hit by floods in 2017. The Chinese government launched post-disaster reconstruction projects there using the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund to offer emergency humanitarian aid for the local people. Photo shows a man receiving living materials donated through the post-disaster reconstruction projects. (Photo courtesy of the China International Development Cooperation Agency)

The officials said that since 1950, China has offered all types of assistance for over 160 countries. The country implemented thousands of complete projects and material aid programs, carried out over ten thousand technological cooperation and human resource development programs, and trained more than 400,000 personnel for developing countries.

China will prioritize health, focus on green development, improve well-being and uphold multilateralism to promote international development cooperation and build a community with a shared future for mankind.

CIDCA chairman Luo Zhaohui noted that apart from traditional bilateral aid, China has enhanced its communication and cooperation with Western countries and international organizations including the UN, to explore multilateral and trilateral cooperation actively.

When carrying out complete projects, China instills development capabilities in recipient countries, promoting human resource training and exchanges of national governance experiences, and combining grants and concessional loans to lower financing costs, Luo remarked.

Besides, China has also enhanced the whole-chain monitoring of aid projects, prevented and managed risks to clean assistance, improved the quality of the projects, and emphasized post-project evaluation to ensure the sustainable development of its foreign aid, Luo noted.

He said China not only is the first country in the world to have made remarkable achievements in pandemic control and recovered economic growth, but also has initiated an emergency humanitarian aid with the longest time span and covering the most comprehensive range.

A rural water supply project in Senegal funded by the Chinese government was completed in 2019. The project has built drinking water facilities for over two million rural residents in 12 of the 14 regions of the country, and significantly improved the drinking water quality, health conditions and living standards for Senegalese rural residents. (Photo courtesy of the China International Development Cooperation Agency)

"Since this year, China has provided over 1.5 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines for 106 countries and four international organizations, contributing significantly to pandemic control and international anti-pandemic cooperation," Luo remarked.

Zhou Liujun, vice chairman of the CIDCA, said China had made fruitful results in its cooperation on health, agriculture, education, and green development under the frameworks of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the China-CELAC Forum, which will help build a closer China-Africa community with a shared future and a closer China-CELAC community with a shared future. Besides, Zhou added that China's aid for the island countries in the South Pacific also achieved positive progress.

Speaking of China's vaccine aid, Deng Boqing, vice chairman of the CIDCA, said the safety and efficacy of Chinese vaccines have been proved as the World Health Organization (WHO) approved Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines for emergency use. He added that the large number of shots given around the globe also fully proved the safety and efficacy of Chinese vaccines. The international society is confident about Chinese vaccines, and scientific studies and clinical data are also in support of them, Deng said.

The Caribbean country of Dominica once suffered a simple structure of agricultural products. It mainly grew bananas and taroes. Due to underdeveloped agricultural technologies, its vegetables were mostly imported. In 2005, the Chinese government started bringing aid programs to the country, offering the latter agricultural technologies and sending Chinese agricultural experts there. (Photo courtesy of the China International Development Cooperation Agency)

Climate change is an alarm sounded by the Nature for humanity. According to Zhang Maoyu, vice chairman of CIDCA, China has implemented over 200 foreign aid projects to cope with climate change in the recent eight years, including 70 for mitigation and 150 for adaption. Besides, China has also launched over 80 training sessions about climate change and trained nearly 2,000 personnel.

In recent years, under the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund framework, China has cooperated with multiple UN organizations to launch development programs in food aid, post-disaster reconstruction, refugee relief, and maternal and child health in over 50 countries. The country also joined hands with Switzerland, Portugal, the UK, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand to implement third-party cooperation projects centering on agriculture, health, and other livelihood sectors.