ADDIS ABABA, June 16 (ANA) – The Deputy Chairperson of African Union Commission (AUC) Erastus Mwencha and Zhang Xiangchen, Vice Minister of Commerce of China, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to support the operationalisation of the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (African CDC) at the AU Headquarters on Thursday.
On the basis of the MoU, China will comprehensively contribute to the efforts of the AUC to establish the Africa CDC and provide assistance with its capacity for the infrastructure construction and operation for the Africa CDC.
According to Mwencha, the cooperation between Africa and China, along with the existing ties between the two, would bring benefits to both Africa and China.
The MoU aims to encourage the promise of the Chinese government that, “China will help Africa strengthen its public health prevention and control system as well as its capacity building by participating in the building of the African Center for Disease Controlâ€, made by President Xi Jinping in his address at the opening ceremony of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) in December 2015, to help African states improve its public health prevention and control system, and to approach the tough challenges in the field of public health.
The AU is the most influential and the most representative regional organization in Africa and China in the long term have a community of shared destiny and shared interest, Zhang said.
“The main purpose of my visit is to further enhance the cooperation with African side on infrastructure, public health and other important areas,†he stated.
The MoU is comprised of three documents covering the cooperation between China and AU in the African CDC, mostly on infrastructure and public health cooperation, which are the two priority areas to reach a broad consensus on strengthening their relations.
“These three documents demonstrate our willingness to continue our cooperation in the two main areas. We hope that in the future
China will participate in construction of CDC and more infrastructure of AU,†Zhang asserts.
The concept of establishing the Africa CDC was presented by the AUC in 2013, which would be the first regional organ in the field of public health in the continent of Africa.
Previously, China has already provided two million dollars cash aid for the Africa CDC in terms of capacity building and the on-site visit for the Regional Collaboration Centers. Furthermore, China is going to dispatch public health experts to the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia soon to participate the establishment of the African CDC.
In April 2015, the AUC chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and John Kerry, US Secretary of State, signed a MoU toward the establishment of the African CDC.
The Africa CDC Coordination Office is to be based at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa. However, five regional collaborating centers, one in each region of the continent, will help execute the day-to-day work of the organization and ensure that the continent is supported at the point of need.
This is part of the agreement and of the pledge made at the summit that was held under Focac in Johannesburg, South Africa. The fact that six months down the road now signing an agreement to continue with the implementation shows the commitment on both sides to realise the benefit out of this, the signees said.
– African News Agency (ANA)
