China's bigger role in offering vaccine stressed

Mareledi Segotso (L), UNFPA Botswana Head of Office, Chinese Ambassador to Botswana Wang Xuefeng (C) and Botswana's Minister of Health and Wellness Edwin Dikoloti pose for a group photo at the handover ceremony of personal protective equipment to Botswana donated by China and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Gaborone, Botswana, Aug 5, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua] 

Global agenda and BRI

Another key focus of China's public goods is to help the least developed nations attain the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the elimination of hunger and poverty and ensuring access to quality healthcare and education.

By the end of 2019, China had dispatched 81 agricultural technology teams composed of 808 experts to 37 Asian and African countries, helping farmers increase productivity and boost their confidence in development. The country has also dispatched 3,588 medical workers overseas in 202 groups, offering treatment to 11 million patients, and has organized professional training for local medical workers and has donated medicines and equipment.

In Nepal, Armenia, Mozambique, Namibia, Peru and Uruguay, China assisted in building a number of primary and secondary schools and offered computers, lab equipment, stationery and sporting goods to improve basic education conditions.

Some analysts said that the BRI has become an immensely popular global public good, the largest platform for cooperation and a broad avenue for shared progress.

China has signed more than 200 cooperation documents with 140 countries and 31 international organizations.

Ivona Ladjevac, deputy director with Institute of International Politics and Economics in Belgrade, Serbia, said the BRI has best exemplified the global public goods offered by China, with numerous infrastructure projects having been and still being conducted worldwide.

Frank Jurgen Richter, founder and chairman of Horasis, an independent international organization committed to enacting visions for a sustainable future, noted China's increasingly significant role as a provider of global public goods, especially infrastructure development.

Richter said he believes infrastructure development will continue to be the most important public good China will focus on in the near future, given China's strong expertise and history of successful infrastructure development.

"Besides, the provision of infrastructure has a strong multiplying effect on economic development," he said.