A Chinese envoy to the United Nations on Monday called for increasing investment in the African Great Lakes region through joint development.
The Great Lakes region is at the center of the African continent "with great development potential," said Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, at a UN Security Council meeting, noting that the unstable situation there has led to insufficient development and severe humanitarian crisis.
"The interests of all countries in the region are best served by ensuring common security, realizing common development and promoting win-win cooperation," said Liu.
He stressed that all parties should stick to the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region, which was signed in February 2013. China hopes that the region's security capacity building and cooperation should be enhanced to achieve common security, said Liu, who believed "poverty and underdevelopment are one of the root causes of the chronic conflicts in the Great Lakes region." "We appeal to the international community to make greater investments in the GLR countries' agriculture, energy, infrastructure, communications and tourism to create more jobs and facilitate regional trade and connectivity, so that these countries can all partake of the dividend and achieve prosperity," he said.
China stands ready to engage in practical result-focused cooperation with Africa in areas including industrialization, modernization of agriculture, infrastructure, finance, poverty reduction, public health, culture, peace and security, said Liu.
China is ready to work with the entire African continent in implementing the outcomes of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in December 2015 with unreserved efforts and in prioritizing improvement of people's livelihood in Africa, and to continuously support African states in building their own development capacity in light of Africa's actual needs, he added.
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