The road to a better life

"If you want to be rich, build roads first." This familiar Chinese saying is finding new resonance on the African continent.

From Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to the industrial hub of Thika, the original road was once severely congested, with the full journey taking around two hours during morning and evening rush hours. Starting in 2009, three Chinese companies undertook upgrade work on different sections of the road, widening it from a four-lane highway to a six-or-eight-lane highway, and drawing Nairobi and Thika closer together.

Since the Thika Road opened, travel time along the full route has been cut to just 30 to 40 minutes. More than a decade on, this transport artery still sees a constant flow of traffic, continuing to serve local communities and drive regional economic development.

The road has changed more than just travel times. Goods reach markets faster, people move more easily, and the housing, commerce and industry along its route have grown accordingly. The corridor's extension northward has also created better conditions for trade and economic exchange between Kenya and neighboring countries such as Ethiopia.

Thousands of kilometers away in South Africa, another economic artery is being upgraded. The N3 highway, which connects Johannesburg with the Port of Durban, is a vital logistics corridor for South Africa and the wider Southern Africa region. China State Construction Engineering Corporation, working with a South African company, is undertaking upgrade works on key sections of the N3 and the N2-N3 interchange, aiming to increase capacity along this busy economic corridor.

Roads connect ports with cities and goods with markets, but they also bring skills training and job opportunities. The N3 upgrade project has created jobs for around 520 employees and trained more than 200 local young people. Builders from different countries, who started out getting to know one another, have grown to trust each other and work side by side. As one South African construction manager on the project put it: "We're like brothers now."

On Sept. 5, 2024, in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summit of the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that, in the next three years, China will work with Africa to take ten partnership actions for modernization to deepen China-Africa cooperation and spearhead the Global South modernization.

From Kenya's Thika Road, which has now been in operation for more than a decade, to South Africa's N3 upgrade project, still under construction, China-Africa cooperation is expanding beyond infrastructure to encompass technical training, job creation and community development.

From practices developed in China to their application on the ground in Africa, China's experience in poverty reduction is being adapted to local conditions and turned into development outcomes, opening up new possibilities for the Global South's path toward modernization, paving a road to a better life through opportunity, growth and hope.