The General Office of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee has supported the hosting of a capacity building program for young parliamentarians from African countries in cooperation with the Academy for International Business Officials (AIBO) of the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM).

More than 50 people from eight African countries including Cameroon, Kenya and Malawi attended the two-week online program that ended on May 26. The workshop aimed to enhance the young African parliamentarians' understanding of the socialist political system with Chinese characteristics, socialist consultative democracy and the CPPCC system in China, and exchange experience in governance.

At the workshop's opening ceremony, Zhang Maoyu, deputy secretary general of the CPPCC National Committee, said he hopes participants can help promote the China-Africa friendship and cooperation in their own work.

In addition to a general introduction of China, the workshop included seven lectures and two seminars to help parliamentarians get a full picture of China's whole-process people's democracy and how CPPCC members perform their duties.

The lectures featured rich information, personal experiences of the speakers, case studies and close interaction with participants. For example, Yang Xiaobo, vice-chairman of the Committee on Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the CPPCC National Committee, started with a quiz with nine questions before giving the answers and explaining in detail the CPPCC's history and development. Zhang Jing’an, vice-chairman of the Committee on Proposals of the CPPCC National Committee, summarized how proposals have contributed to China's development on many fronts in different periods, such as eliminating illiteracy, fighting against schistosomiasis and abolishing agricultural taxes.

Other topics covered at the workshop included research methods by CPPCC members to make informed decisions, poverty reduction, multiparty cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and COVID-19 prevention and control.

The parliamentarians from African countries responded actively at the workshop. One participant from Sudan said he learned a lot about China’s governance and realized the important role of the CPPCC. An attendee from Kenya said the program helped him see the shared values and hard efforts needed to advance the development of African countries. Others also called the learning and experience exchange eye-opening and unforgettable.

The program came as China-Africa relations have continued to flourish, especially on the principle of "sincerity, real results, affinity, and good faith," and nine initiatives for people's well-being were announced at the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in November last year.