Interview: China's green growth path offers insights for Africa, says expert

BAKU, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- China's green development experience offers insights for Africa, a continent with vast renewable energy potential, said Tunisian expert Fadhel Kaboub, a senior advisor with Kenya-based think tank Power Shift Africa.

In an interview with Xinhua at a China Pavilion event during the ongoing 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kaboub said China's green growth in recent years has been "very impressive," and Africa's partnership with China in green technologies presents win-win opportunities for both.

He noted that Africa boasts some of the world's largest reserves of critical minerals, abundant solar and wind resources, and geothermal potential, and is poised for green industrialized development, but still lacks access to manufacturing technology for achieving its green potential.

Africa should follow an industrialization strategy by starting with critical mineral processing and gradually scaling up to high-value industries, as China has done over the past decades, moving to areas such as electrical vehicles and green technologies, Kaboub said.

The expert added that Africa should shift away from old development models of "economic entrapment," dictated by external institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund micro-managing its policy choices.

He noted that China's official foreign policy of non-interference aligns with Africa's need to design its own industrial policies, adding that there is much to learn from China's development experience.

"We have a saying in Tunisia: if you want to fly like an eagle, don't walk with the chicken ... learn from the eagle. And China showed how to take off and fly like an eagle," Kaboub said.