ICASSA
INSTITUTE FOR CHINA AFRICA STUDIES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
ICASSA was established to coordinate the exchanges, seminars and research activities for China Africa Studies that began in 2007 and resulted in a meeting of the SARDC Board with 17 professors from China who were attending the 2nd Symposium on China Zimbabwe and China Africa Relations in 2009. Activities have increased each year, and SARDC has held six symposia since 2007 
on China-Africa relations, in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Zimbabwe, and a number of Chinese research institutions, including the African Studies Institutes at Zhejiang Normal University and Peking University, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Formal partnerships have been established with the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies, the Shanghai Normal University, and the China Institutes for Contemporary International Relations. The Institute for China Africa Studies in Southern Africa is intended to coordinate and strengthen this cooperation.
The institute is a China Africa Think Tank on southern Africa and has two general objectives:
- Strengthen academic and strategic linkages, including joint research and exchanges;
- Strengthen private sector collaboration and opportunities, and address challenges to this sector through practical support.
In 2013, SARDC ICASSA implemented two projects approved by the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) under the China-Africa Joint Research and Exchange Programme. The first was a research paper on Drawing Lessons for African Integration from Accelerated Development in China, which was very well received. This was prepared by SARDC Research Fellow, Clayton Vhumbunu, as the SARDC ICASSA theme research paper for presentation at a China-Africa symposium held in October 2013 in Harare, the 7th such symposium organized by SARDC.
The main theme of the symposium was “Fifty Years of China-Africa Cooperation: Background, Progress & Significance – African Perspectives on China-Africa Relations and the China Development Experience.” Deliberations were divided into daily sub-themes as follows:
- Day 1: China-Africa Cooperation, focusing on Achievements of Past 50 Years Development; and Influence on International Relations;
- Day 2: Experience of China’s Development focusing on Policy, Governance and Peace; Economy – including Agriculture, Industrialisation, Trade and Infrastructure Development; and Diplomatic Practice;
- Day 3: Africa’s Development Prospects, focusing on Perspective of the Relationship between China’s Development and Africa’s Development; and Status Quo, Current Challenges and the Future.
More than 60 scholars, government officials and policy-makers from China and Africa, including men, women and youth attended the symposium. The African scholars came from southern, eastern and west Africa, including Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal.
The research papers from African and Chinese scholars are rich in content and will soon be posted online in a portal established for this purpose. Several other papers and documents have been generated during this process, and these will be accessible online later in 2014.
This Institute can provide useful services to the public and private sectors, to address some of the challenges to Chinese investment and operations that could be resolved with the help of suitable solution-oriented research.
SARDC ICASSA held a Roundtable for the major Chinese enterprises in Zimbabwe in September 2013, and plans to hold the next Roundtable in September 2014. The purpose of the Roundtable is to address the need for research/knowledge and practical support required by the Chinese private sector, and what support they can provide to ICASSA. The Institute needs a firm foundation, and we are seeking six founder members from among the Chinese companies who will invest or contribute to this important initiative.
The Chinese character used in the ICASSA logo is “ben”, which means the source or root (of knowledge), and is also used as a book classification system.
