From the "African Century" to "Africa Rising," Africa's economy has been growing in recent years. Unfortunately, 85 percent of Africans live on less than 5.50 U.S. dollars per day, poverty is a challenge for sustainable development in Africa.

Both the UN SDG 2030 and the African Union's Agenda 2063 listeed "poverty reduction" as their primary goal. However, with Covid-19 hitting Africa, what does the continent need to do to facilitate sustainable development and further reduce poverty? What are the new opportunities rising for sustainable development in Africa?

CGTN Think Tank hosted the "Africa Rising" forum to discuss topics above with scholars, businessmen and the former ambassador from both China and Africa on September 11.

All panelists agreed that African countries need to make a choice on investment to promote development, because the resources and funding are too scarce to cover every sector. The question is, which sector can produce a maximum positive effect with minimum investment in the long-term?

Zhang Yongpeng, professor of the China-African Institute, stated that human resource is the most important aspect now. "[I used to select] one local musician to go to one of the musical institutes in Shanghai to study. When he got back, he [also] helped train some singers and other musicians," Professor Zhang said.

Cross-country education not only provides Africa with more human resource, but also has a positive spillover effect into the local education and community contribution. However, none of the participants agreed on that as being a long-term solution.

On the other hand, Jilles Djon, the General Secretary of the African Chamber of Commerce in China, defended that industrialization should be the priority, especially for energy and electricity.

"We cannot produce and export if we do not have energy, right? But the access rate to energy is around 26 percent in Africa. Some countries are still going through that aspect." Djon said.

Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Chief Executive of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), agreed with Djon, saying urbanization has been attracting more and more people to the cities, so creating more job opportunities for new comers should be a priority.

The debate about development has been lingering for years, but it was disrupted by the COVID-19, a fight that requires collaboration from every part of the continent. Cooperation between countries, firms, and people is the next urgent task when dealing with the COVID-19.

Xu Xiuli, Dean of the College of International Development and Global Agriculture (CIDGA) of the China Agricultural University, shared an example of how the collaboration between people, technology, and e-commerce buffered the influence of the pandemic.

When she initiated the "Simple Technology & Big Harvest" program with her team in Tanzania, she first tried to improve the local production of corn through the introduction of labor-intensive technology to farmers. After the pandemic came, farmers couldn't go to the fields, so she used WeChat to help them keep track of the agricultural products and her team helped promote those products via e-commerce. Now, those Tanzanian farmers already went back to the field.

COVID-19 calls for a collective response from every cell of Africa, as well as outsiders' help. Speaking of African cooperation with international partners, Ambassador Grobler asserted the importance of "one voice."

"What we would like to see from African countries in their interactions with international partners is that they work in a proactive and coordinated and with one voice branch." International cooperation turns to another crucial key when humankind needs to fight the pandemic together. 

Besides, governments might not be able to apply any of those measures in remote areas. Atif Choudhury, an independent research scholar, believes that NGO's could be of additional help, taking care of public health and education, filling in gaps historically left by governments in those areas. 

"Africa is rising but it has a lot of challenges," said Ambassador Grobler. With sustainable development in mind, international organizations and partners can still help to overcome those challenges.

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