Charting pathways to amplify Global South solidarity

SONG CHEN/CHINA DAILY

Rooted in sovereign equality, demand-driven development and mutual benefit, the China-Africa partnership stands as an ever-evolving and exemplary blueprint for advancing the empowerment of the Global South. This framework delivers tangible socioeconomic results while redefining how emerging economies organize collective agency within a landscape marked by fracturing global supply chains, inequitable multilateral financial rules and widening development divides.

China has been Africa's largest trading partner for 17 consecutive years, and the bilateral trade volume exceeded $348 billion in 2025, marking an annual increase of 17.7 percent. The cooperation framework increasingly prioritizes African industrialization, moving beyond simple commodity trade to support local manufacturing, value chain development and job creation.

Established in 2000, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation has delivered successive action plans that have launched thousands of livelihood-focused "small yet beautiful" projects spanning agriculture, healthcare, digital connectivity and vocational training. By 2024, more than 220,000 African professionals had received technical training through Chinese programs, while agricultural technology demonstration centers have boosted food security for millions of rural households across sub-Saharan Africa. Cooperation with China comes without the political conditions that are often associated with Western financial mechanisms.

Africa faces growing debt vulnerabilities and an alternative development finance architecture is urgently required. That's why the New Development Bank under the BRICS framework presents a viable alternative financing channel. Since its founding, the NDB has approved over $40 billion in project financing across member and partner states, including multiple sustainable infrastructure initiatives in Egypt, Bangladesh and South Africa. Deepening coordination between FOCAC mechanisms and BRICS financial institutions creates new avenues to scale affordable, long-term capital for African economies and extend comparable opportunities to other Global South regions.

At the 18th BRICS Summit held in New Delhi on Sept 12-13, leaders adopted a joint declaration reaffirming their commitment to inclusive global governance and multilateralism, while pledging enhanced cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

The summit underscored an agenda centered on improving global governance and fostering sustainable, inclusive global economic growth, while calling for international and regional peace and security. It has amplified the collective voice of the Global South and carries far-reaching implications for Africa.

BRICS has expanded significantly in recent years, with Egypt and Ethiopia among the African countries that have joined the group, embedding African perspectives firmly within the group's decision-making processes. The summit's priorities — improving global governance, revitalizing global trade, deepening economic cooperation and strengthening regional security — align closely with core African demands for fairer global trading rules, predictable investment flows and African-led conflict resolution frameworks.

The New Delhi summit also provided a timely diplomatic window to draw broader lessons from China-Africa engagement and explore how they could inform broader BRICS+strategy for the collective advancement of the Global South, offering a platform to translate the shared aspirations of developing nations into coordinated, actionable outcomes. And as China is set to take over the BRICS presidency in 2027, the China-Africa partnership will serve as an institutional anchor for the next phase of Greater BRICS cooperation.

Looking beyond the summit, a key priority should be advancing coordinated South-South value chain integration. For decades, most Global South economies have remained trapped at the lower end of global production networks, exporting raw materials while importing finished manufactured goods. China-Africa industrial parks and special economic zone partnerships offer a template to break this cycle, supporting local processing capacity to boost export competitiveness. BRICS nations can jointly promote such industrial cooperation models across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, facilitating technology transfer and shared manufacturing capacity among developing economies. Parallel progress on local currency settlement mechanisms, being explored and implemented in various forms among BRICS members and their partners, can reduce systemic exposure to currency volatility and unilateral financial sanctions.

On regional security, the China-Africa framework prioritizes African solutions to African problems, rejecting external military interventionism and prioritizing political mediation of conflicts. This principle aligns with core BRICS consensus on advancing inclusive security governance. At the New Delhi summit, BRICS leaders reaffirmed the importance of advocating greater African representation within the United Nations Security Council and other multilateral bodies, a longstanding demand shared widely across the Global South. Unified advocacy for reform of global governance institutions remains essential to dismantle outdated power structures that systematically marginalize developing countries.

As the influence of BRICS expands, narratives questioning the intentions of South-South partnerships continue to circulate. Yet the lived experience across African nations demonstrates that the China-Africa model operates on fundamentally different terms from traditional donor-recipient hierarchies. Cooperation projects are negotiated bilaterally, aligned with national development strategies set by African governments, and designed to support long-term self-reliance rather than permanent dependency. This partnership advocates a multipolar international order where every nation, large or small, enjoys equal decision-making rights.

Moving forward, amplifying Global South voices demands sustained, institutionalized dialogue rather than ad-hoc diplomatic coordination. BRICS can draw on FOCAC's regular ministerial conferences, thematic working groups and people-to-people exchange frameworks to build permanent consultation channels with Global South communities. Expanded collaboration in climate finance, digital transformation and food security — all critical areas for Africa and developing regions — can demonstrate how collective South-South action delivers tangible progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The China-Africa partnership, developed over two decades of effective collaboration, serves as a practical model for Global South nations to unite and advance shared interests. Its foundation of equality, mutual respect and win-win development presents a viable alternative to hierarchical international relations. Applying the lessons from this partnership to the commitments made at the September summit — and carrying them forward under China's 2027 BRICS presidency — could not only strengthen Africa-BRICS ties but also initiate a new era of unified Global South action, reshaping international trade, finance and security for the future.

The author is former state minister of planning and development of Ethiopia.