Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 West 168th Street, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
Schwarzman Scholars, 641 Lexington Avenue, 23rd Floor, New York, NY, 10022, USA.
Global Health. 2020 Jul 29;16(1):71. doi: 10.1186/s12992-020-00577-0.
China has played an increasing role in development aid across Africa. Most recently, China has increased its external investments through the Belt and Road Initiative, China's signature infrastructure and trade drive to link China to Asia and Africa. This is likely to result in continuing growth of China's investment in health in sub Saharan Africa. While conflicting opinions have been raised regarding the motivation and value of these investments, few data have been solicited from those directly involved in China-Africa health aid. We conducted a qualitative study to collect information on perceptions and opinions regarding Chinese-supported health related activities in Africa through in-depth interviews among local African and Chinese participants in Malawi and Tanzania.
Our findings reveal shared experiences and views related to challenges in communication; cultural perspectives and historical context; divergence between political and business agendas; organization of aid implementation; management and leadership; and sustainability. Participants were broadly supportive and highly valued Chinese health aid. However, they also shared common insights that relate to challenging coordination between China and recipient countries; impediments to communication between health teams; and limited understanding of priorities and expectations. Further, they share perspectives about the need for shaping the assistance based on needs assessments as well as the importance of rigorous reporting, and monitoring and evaluation systems. Our findings suggest that China faces similar challenges to those experienced by other longstanding development aid and global health donors. As it continues to expand cooperation across Africa and other regions, it will be important for China to consider the issues identified through our study to help inform collaborative and effective global health assistance programs. The insights garnered from this research are not only relevant to China's engagement in Africa but for other global health assistance donors as well.
中国在非洲发展援助中扮演着越来越重要的角色。最近，中国通过“一带一路”倡议增加了对外投资，该倡议是中国连接亚洲和非洲的基础设施和贸易计划。这可能会导致中国在撒哈拉以南非洲的卫生投资继续增长。虽然对于这些投资的动机和价值存在不同意见，但很少有数据是从直接参与中非卫生援助的人那里收集的。我们进行了一项定性研究，通过在马拉维和坦桑尼亚的当地非洲和中国参与者中进行深入访谈，收集有关中国支持的与健康相关的活动在非洲的看法和意见的信息。
我们的研究结果揭示了与沟通挑战、文化观点和历史背景、政治和商业议程之间的分歧、援助实施的组织、管理和领导以及可持续性相关的共同经验和观点。参与者普遍支持并高度重视中国的卫生援助。然而，他们也分享了一些共同的观点，涉及到中国和受援国之间协调的挑战、卫生团队之间沟通的障碍以及对优先事项和期望的理解有限。此外，他们还认为需要根据需求评估来调整援助，并强调建立严格的报告、监测和评估系统的重要性。我们的研究结果表明，中国面临着与其他长期发展援助和全球卫生捐助者所经历的类似挑战。随着中国继续在非洲和其他地区扩大合作，中国将需要考虑通过我们的研究确定的问题，以帮助为协作和有效的全球卫生援助计划提供信息。从这项研究中获得的见解不仅与中国在非洲的参与有关，也与其他全球卫生援助捐助者有关。
