By Talibeh Hydara
President Xi Jinping has revealed that China and Africa have agreed to designate 2026 as year of people-to-people changes.
Delivering the keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2024 FOCAC summit in Beijing on Thursday, President Xi announced ten key action plans to strength China-Africa cooperation, among which is promoting people to people exchanges.
“China will implement with Africa more solidly the Future of Africa—Vocational Education Cooperation Plan, establish together an engineering technology academy, and build ten Luban Workshops. We will provide 60,000 training opportunities to Africa, mainly for women and youths,” President Xi said.
“We will launch with Africa a Cultural Silk Road program as well as an initiative of cooperation on innovation in radio, TV and audio and visual programs. The two sides have agreed to designate 2026 as the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges,” he added.
The Gambia and China have enjoyed excellent relations in the past eight years with more than one thousand Gambians visiting China and over three hundred befitting from the Chinese government scholarships.
In the area of political cooperation, President Xi announced China will invite 1000 political party members from Africa to visit China in order to share experiences in party and state governance.
“China is ready to work with Africa to build a platform for governance experience sharing, a China-Africa knowledge network for development, and 25 centers on China and Africa studies. We will make better use of Africa’s leadership academies to cultivate talents for governance, and invite 1,000 members of African political parties to China to deepen exchanges of experience in party and state governance,” he noted.
The 2024 FOCAC summit concluded with Beijing Action Plan (2025-2027) and Beijing Declaration on Jointly Building an All-Weather China-Africa Community with a Shared Future for the New Era.
