AFRALTI had the privilege to represent its nine member states at the China Africa Digital Capacity Building Cooperation Forum held in Beijing, China.

AFRALTI’s participation at the forum comes after a recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the China Academy of Information and Communication (CAICT) which aims to strengthen cooperation on digital economy governance and policy, ICT industry development, innovation and entrepreneurship, digital inclusiveness and digital transformation.

Speaking at the forum China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Mr. Jin Zhuanglong said, “China and Africa cooperation is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative and China is willing to work with African partners to promote the continuous development of digital capacity building cooperation.“

He added that by focusing on key areas such as new-generation mobile communication, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, satellite internet, e-commerce, network security, and digital transformation, will see China deeply tap into cooperation potential, enriching cooperation projects, expanding cooperation space, injecting new impetus and depicting a new landscape for the development of the digital economy between China and Africa in accordance with the principle of marketization. 

AFRALTI and CAICT have lined up various tracks to be launched in 2024 stemming from collaborative research and innovation, set up of new research labs and pilot demonstrations of IoT and A.I.