On June 20th, Prof. Simon Commander, Managing Partner of Altura Partners, and Prof. Wang Yan, Director of China Operations, Altura Partners, visited the School of Public Policy and Management. They gave a joint lecture titled “China & Africa: Making the Relationship Work for Development.”

 

Prof. Commander and Prof. Wang pointed out that there are a lot of problems throughout the development of Africa. For example,  natural resources do not often result into gains in welfare indicators, and there are problems of governance in natural resource deals, along with low quality of education. They indicated that China can better contribute to Africa’s development by providing help and support in financing and technical skills, and improving administrative and managerial capacity.

 

Prof. Zhang Yanbing from SPPM moderated the lecture. Over 40 students, the majority of which were our IMPA students from Africa, attended the lecture and had heated discussion with the two professors afterwards.