China may be accused of placing business above human rights in Africa but the World Bank says in a new report that the Asian giant is spearheading a massive infrastructure revolution in the continent critical to reducing poverty.
China, India, and a few Middle Eastern Gulf nations are financing an unprecedented number of infrastructure projects across Sub-Saharan Africa — both in scale and the focus on large infrastructure projects, the report said.
Investment commitments in Africa by these emerging financiers jumped from less than US$1 billion per year before 2004 to US$8 billion in 2006 and US$5 billion last year, signaling a growing trend in cooperation among developing economies, the report said.
“Today, China’s growing infrastructure commitments in Africa are helping to address the huge infrastructure deficit of the continent,” said Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, the World Bank’s vice president for the Africa region as he launched the report on Thursday.
Entitled Building Bridges: China’s Growing Role as Infrastructure Financier for Sub-Saharan Africa, the report said new infrastructure partnerships in the region were being driven by strong economic growth, improved business-friendly climate and rising demand for commodities from China and India.
“The growing South-South cooperation is driven by strong economic complementarities between China and Africa,” said Vivien Foster, a World Bank economist and coauthor of the report.
The report said that in a changing world, with new actors and financing modalities coming into play, there is a “learning process for investors and recipients.”
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS