Source: allAfrica.com

22 August 2010

 

Nairobi - African scholars interested in the growing relations between their continent and China will have a chance to debate this important topic at a meeting scheduled for March 28 to 30, 2011 in Nairobi.

"It is high-time to involve African scholars in this process, along with their Chinese counterparts," says Prof Osita C Eze, director general, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.

"If Africa has to become a global player, we need to know and enable African policy-makers to understand better who interlocutors of other regions of the world are," adds Dr Ebrima Sall, executive secretary of Codesria, a leading pan-African social science research council and think-tank.

Continental legitimacy

The Nairobi event has been proposed by a Provisional Steering Committee (PSC), to lend continental legitimacy to the nascent dialogue between African and Chinese scholars.

The PSC represents a group of African scholars who attended the launch ceremony in Beijing, on March 31, 2010, of a Joint Africa-China Research and Academic Exchange Programme.