The ongoing 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit is expected to elevate China-Africa engagement and cooperation to a new level, as it is likely to suggest ways to overcome the challenges facing the world and outline necessary measures to consolidate the gains already made by both sides.

The third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in July decided to comprehensively deepen reform and promote high-level opening-up, creating new opportunities for Africa and the rest of the world to share the fruits of China’s development.

China-Africa cooperation, especially since the first China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo held in Hunan Province in 2018, has made it easier for African countries to access the Chinese market. In 2023, trade between the two sides reached $282.1 billion, up 11 percent year on year, and Chinese investment in Africa increased to $40 billion.

Apart from trade and investment, the summit will also provide an opportunity for African leaders to discuss with their Chinese counterparts ways to eradicate poverty, as China has accomplished the monumental task of eradicating extreme poverty in 2020.

As expected, African countries are optimistic about their engagement with Chinese leaders at the Beijing summit. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, in his recent meeting with the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister in Nigeria, said he welcomed China’s actions in Africa as China is helping to mobilize capital for projects that have a positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of our people in Africa.

As a genuine engagement mechanism between Africa and China, FOCAC has been recognized both as a platform for dialogue and consultation, and as a means to achieve practical and tangible results for African countries.

From infrastructure construction to trade and investment to cultural and educational exchanges, FOCAC has helped meet the needs of African countries and bridge historical infrastructure and connectivity gaps on the continent. The second and third FOCAC summits, held in Johannesburg and Beijing in 2015 and 2018 respectively, were game-changers for China-Africa cooperation. The two summits identified crucial and targeted areas of cooperation, including infrastructure construction, industrialization, agricultural modernization, healthcare, capacity building, and cultural and educational exchanges. They have made significant contributions to the economic recovery of African countries and promoted regional trade under the framework of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

The FOCAC mechanism has become Africa’s most effective platform for global cooperation, through in-depth consultations and broader engagements, while consolidating China-Africa cooperation and advancing the building of a China-Africa community with a shared future.

From Beijing, Africa should get concrete contributions, as well as promises of additional investment, increased trade and infrastructure construction, which will not only cushion the side effects of economic reform on the continent, but also provide essential support that will make this difficult economic reform a worthwhile undertaking in the short and long term.

Through reform and opening up, China has achieved an economic miracle: it has become the world’s second-largest economy, eradicated extreme poverty, and built a moderately prosperous society in all respects. China’s economic journey has been fascinating, and its development model may be the most successful. But by blindly copying China’s development model, African countries cannot achieve much, because the realities on the ground and the economic and political systems of China and African countries are very different.

Africa-China cooperation has come a long way, but at this historical inflection point, where China needs to strengthen South-South cooperation as a bulwark against the US-led West’s policy of containment of China, Africa and China need to recalibrate their cooperation mechanisms to ensure that they go beyond normal exchanges.

The challenges created by growing global uncertainties require traditional partners such as Africa and China to be creative, as they must not only maintain the momentum of their relationship, but also inject new vitality into their partnership, which can transform existing opportunities into concrete and tangible results.

The FOCAC summits and other meetings have highlighted the issues of cooperation and the necessary financing. However, African countries must move beyond the pomp of the summits to develop a road map for following up on the decisions taken at these summits. The situation in Africa is too dire for African leaders and officials to be content with the photo ops and handshakes that are part of the summits. They must act, and act now.

China’s spectacular economic rise is due to its impeccable planning, rigorous implementation, methodical monitoring and mutually beneficial relations with other countries. Therefore, African countries must abandon their casual approach to nonchalant monitoring and implementation of economic plans and, instead, carry out development projects and transform economic potential into real gains if they want to emulate China in terms of economic development.

Of course, the ongoing summit will provide answers to the pressing question of how to achieve sustainable development, maintain global peace and foster mutually beneficial partnerships, but unless African countries take practical corrective measures, they will not be able to overcome the challenges and achieve prosperity.

The FOCAC summit is expected to greatly promote the reform of the global governance system in order to build a more just and equitable world order, which adheres to the principle that the world as a whole is a community with a shared future.

The author is research director of the Centre for Chinese Studies in Nigeria, a think tank based in Abuja.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of China Daily.