Enhancing China–Africa Health Cooperation for a Healthier and Safer World: A Multilateral Perspective

Abstract

China has made remarkable contributions to Africa’s health development through building public health facilities and systems, building basic medical service capacity, and improving human resources for medical services. Despite these achievements, China still faces challenges in improving project effectiveness, increasing local engagement, expanding the scope of health cooperation, and enhancing interaction with the larger international aid community. Besides, the differences in culture, communication style, history, and institution limit China and Africa on “soft” issues, as does the absence of a coherent and coordinated approach among Chinese stakeholders in health cooperation. One solution is to increase multilateral engagement in China–Africa health cooperation. Compared with other countries, China’s engagement in Africa’s health development is primarily bilateral, and its roles in the structure, management, and decision-making of the health-related multilateral organizations are also limited. Building on their acknowledged strengths, such as knowledge bases and centers, health and medical expertise, and past best practices, extensive connections with local communities, multilateral organizations should play a more prominent role in strengthening China–Africa health cooperation. To increase engagement with multilateral organizations and improve effectiveness and sustainability of China–Africa health cooperation, Beijing should conduct more field research and analysis to better understand the local development needs, ensure appropriate, targeted, and contextualized health cooperation, and jointly establish a pooled fund to guarantee stable, sustained, and predictable commitments from each side.