Bongani Ndlovu
Mafa Kwanisai Mafa
The first anniversary of China’s Global Governance Initiative (GGI) offers Africa a vital opportunity to assess not only China’s policy proposals, but also what the changing global governance landscape means for the African continent. From an African standpoint, one core question stands out: can the GGI help build a world in which African countries enjoy stronger voice, expanded policy space and greater autonomy to shape their own development pathways? The question merits careful and constructive consideration.
Launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Plus meeting held in Tianjin in September 2025, the GGI rests on five core pillars: sovereign equality, international rule of law, multilateralism, a people-centred approach and practical action. These pillars respond directly to long-standing African grievances about the existing international system: skewed representation, pervasive double standards, unwarranted external interference, and the persistent gap between international pledges and real-world development results.
Sovereign Equality: Redressing Historical Power Imbalances
From an African perspective, sovereign equality is the essential starting point. Colonial history taught Africa the dangers of an international order in which powerful states determine the destiny of weaker nations. Political independence removed formal colonial rule, yet deeply unequal structures of global political and economic power persist. African countries still carry limited weight within the institutions that set many of the rules governing international finance, trade, technology and security.
Against this backdrop, the GGI’s emphasis on equal participation carries particular relevance. Its premise that countries, regardless of size or wealth, deserve equal rights of participation and decision-making aligns closely with Africa’s demand for greater representation in multilateral bodies. Reform of the United Nations Security Council remains central to Africa’s international agenda; despite the continent’s vast population and territorial scale, its permanent representation in the world’s principal security organ remains unresolved. Sovereign equality cannot remain rhetorical—it demands institutional change delivered through multilateral frameworks.
International Rule of Law: Rejecting Double Standards in Global Affairs
The second pillar, international rule of law, is equally significant. African observers have repeatedly witnessed international law being interpreted differently according to who is involved. The African Union and China have consistently reaffirmed the principles of state sovereignty, territorial integrity, the UN Charter and peaceful settlement of disputes. In January 2026, the African Union and China renewed these commitments and agreed to strengthen practical cooperation on global governance.
This is far from an abstract theoretical issue. For Africa, international law carries direct consequences for peace, security and development. Conflicts across the continent cannot be separated from external geopolitical interests, competition for resources and the historical intervention of powerful states. A rules-based international system serves Africa only when those rules apply uniformly to all actors. Africa therefore has a legitimate interest in opposing double standards wherever they emerge, regardless of whether the actor is Western, Asian, African or otherwise.
Multilateralism: Collective Voice for the Global South
Third, multilateralism resonates strongly with African aspirations. As 54 individual states, African countries cannot realistically negotiate with the world’s major powers on equal terms. Collective platforms such as the African Union amplify continental diplomatic weight, and the same logic applies at the global level: African countries benefit far more from broadly negotiated outcomes than from edicts imposed by a handful of powerful states.
This is why the expansion of platforms such as BRICS and the SCO deserves serious African attention. According to China’s Foreign Ministry, nearly 160 countries and international organisations had expressed support for the GGI by September 2026, while more than 60 countries had joined the Group of Friends of Global Governance. Such support takes different forms, from political endorsement to concrete collaborative projects. Numbers alone do not prove an initiative’s effectiveness, but they signal that the debate over global governance is no longer confined to Western capitals.
The African Union has itself welcomed China’s four global initiatives on development, security, civilisation and governance, describing them as consistent with Africa’s transformative agenda and supportive of greater Global South participation in international decision-making. This marks an important development: Africa increasingly sees global governance reform as part of the broader struggle for a more balanced international system.
People-Centred Governance: Grounding Global Rules in Lived Realities
Fourth, people-centred governance carries particular weight for Africa, because global governance must ultimately be judged by its impact on ordinary people. Africans do not experience global governance through diplomatic communiqués; they experience it through food prices, access to medicines, employment opportunities, debt burdens, energy supplies, education, technology and infrastructure.
The GGI therefore deserves to be judged by whether its principles can deliver tangible improvements in these everyday domains. The SCO experience offers a useful reference: cooperation has expanded beyond traditional security concerns into infrastructure, energy, education, healthcare, tourism, youth exchanges and livelihood projects. Discussions in Bishkek on global governance have also highlighted proposals such as an SCO Development Bank and the continued expansion of practical cooperation.
One clear lesson emerges for Africa: global governance must move from conference declarations to concrete development outcomes. Africa has no shortage of declarations, strategies and development plans; what the continent urgently requires is consistent implementation.
Pragmatic Delivery: Africa’s Own Benchmarks for Partnership
This brings us to the fifth pillar: practical action, which may ultimately become the most important test of the initiative. The GGI itself recognises the danger of extensive consultation without sufficient implementation. Recent assessments argue that the initiative is now entering the more demanding phase of translating principles into institutions, rules, financing and practical cooperation.
Africa should welcome this emphasis while applying its own independent benchmarks. African stakeholders must ask critical practical questions: Does cooperation build local industrial capacity? Does it support African value addition? Does it transfer skills and technology? Does it create decent employment? Does it strengthen home-grown African institutions? Does it advance the goals of Agenda 2063? Does it contribute to African strategic autonomy rather than creating another form of dependency?
These questions matter because Africa should not replace one dependency with another. Africa can welcome partnerships with China, the United States, Europe, Russia, India, the Arab world and others, yet every partnership must advance African interests. Strategic autonomy, not geopolitical alignment, should remain the guiding principle. Notably, concerns over dependency belong to the logic of old-style colonial hierarchies and should not be conflated with South-South partnerships built on mutual benefit.
Here the GGI can potentially complement the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The African Union and China have already agreed to explore closer alignment between China’s development plans, Africa’s Agenda 2063 and FOCAC commitments. Africa’s opportunity is therefore not merely to support an external initiative, but to use the changing international environment to advance its own development priorities.
The GGI also arrives at a moment when Africa is seeking greater control over its resources and development choices. Critical minerals, energy, agriculture, digital technology and infrastructure now sit at the heart of global competition. Africa possesses many of the resources required for the world’s green and digital transitions; yet possessing resources is not the same as controlling their value chains. African countries increasingly need partnerships that promote processing, manufacturing, skills development and technology transfer, rather than simply exporting raw materials.
From this perspective, China’s emphasis on South-South cooperation carries meaningful potential. Even so, Africa should remain an active participant rather than a passive recipient. The most durable partnerships emerge when African states negotiate from a position of knowledge, unity and confidence.
Strategic Engagement, Not Blind Endorsement or Rejection
The GGI should therefore be understood neither simply as a Chinese project nor automatically dismissed as a geopolitical instrument. Its real significance will depend on what countries make of it. As one commentary on its first year argues, the initiative should be tested by reality, with its principles measured against concrete actions and its weaknesses openly examined. That is a reasonable standard from an African perspective.
Africa should neither applaud uncritically nor reject reflexively; it should engage strategically. The continent should use the GGI debate to reinforce its demands for Security Council reform, fairer global financial institutions, greater development financing, technology access, debt solutions, stronger multilateralism and respect for national sovereignty. At the same time, Africa should insist that any global governance reform deliver measurable benefits for African citizens.
Conclusion: Toward an Order of Fair Opportunities
The first year of the GGI marks the beginning rather than the conclusion of the debate. For Africa, one of the initiative’s greatest merits lies in widening the international conversation about who makes global rules, whose interests those rules serve and how global institutions can become more representative.
For a continent that has experienced colonial domination, structural economic inequality and marginalisation in global decision-making, that conversation matters enormously.
Africa’s message should be clear: the future global order must not simply be multipolar in the distribution of power; it must also be fairer in the distribution of opportunity. When anchored in sovereign equality, genuine multilateralism, practical cooperation and people-centred development, the GGI opens constructive avenues for African engagement. African nations can participate in it purposefully, while keeping African agency, African interests and African development firmly at the centre of the continent’s choices.
About the Author
Mafa Kwanisai Mafa is an Africa-based independent policy analyst. His research focuses on Global South relations, African regional integration and multilateral governance reform, with particular attention to Africa’s strategic partnerships.
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