China's International Development Cooperation in the New Era
3. Groundbreaking Progress in Reform and Management
To better adapt to the new circumstances, China has reformed its foreign aid systems and mechanisms to improve management and promote international development cooperation in the new era.
－Institutional reform. In April 2018, the Chinese government set up the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) directly under the State Council. This is a significant move to safeguard world peace and promote common development. It serves to better plan and coordinate efforts on international cooperation and build synergy for development. The establishment of such a specialized agency represents a milestone in China's foreign aid journey.
－Better management. China has improved its evaluation mechanisms for foreign aid projects, so as to raise the quality and depth of feasibility analysis. To make feasibility studies more forward-looking, environmental impact, future management and other long-term factors are taken into consideration.
China has formulated clearly defined project management rules and regulations, improved procedures for governmental procurement, contract performance, and qualification assessment of enterprises bidding for foreign aid projects, and endeavored to establish a tendering system focusing on high quality and competitive pricing. To guard against corruption, China has strengthened the performance appraisal mechanism for entities undertaking projects.
China has optimized its rapid response mechanism for emergency humanitarian aid to ensure prompt and effective assistance, and strengthened supervision and evaluation to improve the overall efficiency of its foreign aid.
III. Boosting International Cooperation on the Belt and Road
Since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed, China has carried out development cooperation and contributed to policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity based on the needs of individual countries, creating space and opportunities to promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.
