On June 26, the international seminar “Global Management: China-Africa education cooperation and people-to-people exchanges” was held at the African Institute of Zhejiang Normal University. During the seminar Wu Peng, the director of the international development department of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), gave a talk about the poverty reduction projects that the CFPA has been carrying out in Africa recently, setting a pioneering path for Chinese foundations.
As Wu Peng explained, since 2007 the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation has carried out projects involving maternal and paediatric hospitals, school canteens, care packages, water cellars, and women’s professional training in countries including Guinea Bissau, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Namibia, and Ghana. They have also actively reacted to disasters such as the drought occurring in the horn of Africa and the Ebola virus in West Africa.
The CFPA has also made a great contribution to African countries’ education. Through the “Smiling Children School Meal Plan” program in Ethiopia and Sudan, the foundation has invested 19.65 million yuan in providing free meals for poor primary school students in public schools for four years. The program has benefitted 38,278 students annually, ensuring their physical health, promoted local school-age children’s enrolment rate and attendance, and provided a basic guarantee that they can smoothly complete their studies.
Moreover, on February 26 this year the foundation cooperated with the Alibaba Charity to initiate the “International Love Packages Project” in Beijing, aimed at improving the learning conditions of students in poor areas by donating basic school utensils. The project planned to distribute 200,000 “love packages” in at least 11 countries. In 2019, 100,000 “love packages” will be distributed in Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, and Namibia to benefit 100,000 local school children in need.
Since the first step in the CFPA’s internationalization, considered to be its response to the Indonesian tsunami in 2005, the foundation has invested more than 1.62 billion yuan in over 20 developing countries, with about 450,000 people benefitting.
You can find CDB’s recent interview with Wu Peng here
