SANF 26 no 10 September by Grace Maingire
Academic and research institutions should be placed at the centre of China-Africa cooperation, with universities and research centres supported to shape dialogue, drive innovation and promote inclusive development.
This was said by Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) Executive Director Joseph Ngwawi during the signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between SARDC and Xiangtan University of China in Harare on 28 August.
Ngwawi said the partnership between SARDC and Xiangtan University reflects a broader shift towards placing education and research at the heart of Africa’s engagement with China.
“We expect tangible outcomes – strengthened institutional capacity for research and dissemination, enhanced opportunities for young scholars to engage in cross‑cultural learning and joint studies and policy dialogues that inform regional and global debates.”
Xiangtan University President Professor Liao Yong’an, who was represented by Dr Wang Weifeng, research fellow and lecturer at the university’s China-Africa Research Institute, described the signing as a starting point rather than an end in itself.
“The signing of the MoU is an important step. But more importantly, we hope this agreement will lead to concrete cooperation in the future, including joint research, academic exchanges, joint conferences and seminars, and exchanges between our scholars and students.”
The agreement commits both institutions to collaborative research on shared priorities, including the study of China-Africa cooperation, closer links between Chinese and southern African universities and think tanks, and expanded academic exchanges between scholars from China and Zimbabwe, and China and rest of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
The two institutions plan to jointly support government, enterprise and think‑tank research projects and to widen collaborative networks across Zimbabwe and the SADC region.
SARDC is an independent regional knowledge resource based in Zimbabwe, which was established in 1985 to strengthen regional policy perspectives in southern Africa and other parts of the continent.
Working with partners, SARDC aims is to improve the base of knowledge about economic, political, cultural and social developments in Africa, and their implications, by making information accessible to governments and policy makers, non-governmental organisations, the private sector, regional and international organisations, development agencies, parliaments and the media.
Xiangtan University is one of China’s top educational institutes, established in 1958 under a proposal from Mao Zedong. Chairman Mao was the founding leader of the People’s Republic of China and head of the Chinese Communist Party from 1949 until his death in 1976.
It has a graduate school and 24 colleges/faculties covering 10 major disciplines: arts, economics, education, engineering, history, law, literature, management, philosophy and science.
As of 2025, the Best Chinese Universities Ranking voted the Xiangtan University the fourth best institution of higher learning in Hunan province, the only one among the top five in the region located outside the provincial capital Changsha. sardc.net