Seminar on China-Africa Rice Value Chain Successfully Concluded
From 7 to 8 September, Seminar on China-Africa Rice Value Chain: Rice Processing, Storage and Quality Control was successfully held in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. The Seminar was jointly organized by United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, WFP Center of Excellence for Rural Transformation, WFP Region Center of Excellence against Hunger and Malnutrition, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CICETE and National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration of China and received the great support from Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa, and Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Food and Strategic Reserves.
The Seminar was combined with offline and online sessions, including both in-house discussions and technical visit to rice storage and processing facilities. The opening ceremony was followed by 2 panel discussions, focused on rice processing and quality control, rice storage and quality control along rice value chain, 3 side events, theming as Introduction of WFP-China South-South Cooperation Knowledge Sharing Platform, Partnership Bridging for China-Africa Rice Value Chain and Introduction to Rice Value Chain Post-harvest Loss Management Project, and the closing session.
About 200 representatives from UN agencies, the Chinese government, embassies in China, research institutes, academia, financial institutions, and private sectors attended the Seminar. CICETE Deputy Director-General Zhang Yi delivered an opening remark and moderated the closing session.
Mr. Zhang Yi, underscored in his opening remark that, the rice value chain is both inclusive and labor-intensive, which can not only reduce hunger, but also involve more employment opportunities, and benefit more local small-holders, societies, and developing countries, contributing to eradicating rural poverty and promoting sustainable development. Strengthening China-Africa rice value chain cooperation is challenging but promising.
The Seminar was one of the activities supported under the Global South-South Development Center Project with an aim to provide opportunity to link both China and Africa concerned partners to share insights and exchange visions on solutions and pathways to enhance the actual cooperation, to create an enabling platform to smooth the cooperation on rice value chain development and facilitate Africa to benefit from the Chinese food security experience and expertise in agricultural development and to make contribution to UN Sustainable Development Goals and Africa 2063 Agenda.
Background information:
A Joint Initiative on South-South Cooperation for Rice Value Chain Development in Africa was announced at the Seminar of China-Africa Ag-coop and Development by China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE), China National Hybrid Rice R&D Center, World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC), African Union and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), during the period of the first China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo in June 2019, Changsha, China.
