China has been seeking to renew the global focus on development issues and explore pathways for practical international development cooperation in a turbulent world that has faced unprecedented challenges over recent years.
The Global Development Initiative (GDI), proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2021, is one of the important public goods provided by China to the world, contributing a Chinese solution to promote global development.
Speaking at a session of the 17th summit of the Group of 20 (G20) last year, Xi noted that the GDI proposed is aimed at “meeting the long-term objective and immediate needs of common development of the world, fostering international consensus on promoting development, cultivating new drivers for global development, and facilitating common development and progress of all countries.”
A promising response
The UN has repeatedly warned that the world was off track in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a gloomy global economic outlook and intensified climate crisis.
The SDGs were unanimously adopted by world leaders in September 2015 to serve as the blueprint for global development efforts in the years leading up to 2030. The 17 goals aim to end poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change.
Siddharth Chatterjee, a UN resident coordinator in China, hailed that the GDI is a promising response to help the world recover from recent setbacks and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs worldwide.
He pointed out that the GDI’s eight priorities are aligned with the SDGs, including the areas of poverty eradication, food security, health, climate action, the planet, industrialization, innovation and means of implementation.
Stephen Bainous Kargbo, the UN Industrial Development Organization representative to China, also said that the GDI holds a great promise to address global challenges and the development needs of developing countries.
With the goal of building a global development community and accelerating the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda, the GDI calls for international commitment to adhere to development-first, innovation-driven and people-centered approaches and result-oriented actions, he highlighted.
Walk the talk
Since its inception, the GDI has received warm responses from the international community, with over 100 countries and international organizations showing their support of the GDI.
Currently, nearly 70 countries have joined the UN-based Group of Friends of the GDI and China has also signed Memorandums of Understanding on cooperation with nearly 20 countries and international organizations in this regard.
Hosting the High-level Dialogue on Global Development virtually in June 2022, President Xi proposed a series of major steps that China will take to implement the GDI, and announced a list of deliverables, including 32 measures covering the GDI’s eight key areas of cooperation.
The efforts include upgrading the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund to a Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, adding $1 billion to the fund in addition to the $3 billion already committed, and increasing its input in the UN Peace and Development Trust Fund. The two funds have become major financial platforms, through which China can support cooperation under the framework of the GDI.
According to the Progress Report on the Global Development Initiative, released in June compiled by the Center for International Knowledge on Development, half of the 32 concrete actions proposed have been accomplished or have yielded initial results.
The report also pointed out that, of the 50 practical cooperation projects included in the first list of the GDI project pool released in September 2022, more than 10 have been completed, while the rest are seeing steady progress.
The project pool is being enlarged and now includes nearly 200 projects.
While supporting food aid programs and post-pandemic recovery in developing countries, China has prioritized enhancing developing countries’ capacity to cope with climate change. For example, the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Action Cooperation Center was unveiled in April 2022. China is also cooperating with relevant international organizations and other developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to combat desertification.
(Cover: A Chinese instructor and his Kenyan apprentice walk past a train carriage on the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway in Nairobi, Kenya, May 23, 2023. /Xinhua)
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