Sierra Leone’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Prof. David. J Francis will lead his country’s delegation to this year’s Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) scheduled to take place between November 29 and 30 in Dakar, Senegal.
The theme of the conference will be “Deepening China-Africa Partnership and Promote Sustainable Development to Build a China-Africa Community with a Shared Future in the New Era. African countries will see what China can offer on the resilience of their post-pandemic economies and on health support while continuing to re0launch major infrastructure programs to strengthen China-Africa cooperation.
The meeting would ‘review and assess the follow-up implementation of the outcomes of the 2018 FOCAC Beijing Summit as well as the joint China-Africa response to Covid-19, and chart the course for China-Africa relations for the next three years and more to come.’
On 8 November, Senegal’s foreign minister Aissata Tall Sall and the Chinese ambassador to Dakar, Xiao Han, announced that the forum would adopt four resolutions: The Dakar Action Plan (2022-2024); the 2035 Vision for China-Africa Cooperation; the Sino-African Declaration on Climate Change; and the Declaration of the Eighth Ministerial Conference of FOCAC.
Sierra Leone and China have a long-standing bi-lateral relationship spanning half a century since the establishment of diplomatic relations. The two countries have maintained a high level of mutual trust and genuine friendship with tangible developmental results.
FOCAC is a triennial high-level forum between China and all of the states of Africa, with the exception of Eswatini, which continues to recognise Taiwan. Modelled on Japan’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), it provides an organising mechanism for Chinese foreign policy toward Africa.
Ishmael Bayoh
Information Attachè
Sierra Leone Embassy Dakar, Senegal
