1. March – Zimbabwe: The Chinese government pledged to upgrade Zimbabwe’s main isolation centre for patients suspected to be infected with COVID -19 at Wilkins Hospital in the capital, Harare. Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Guo Shaochun said that the upgrade will help Zimbabwe to deal with the virus as the number of cases in Africa continues to grow.
2. March – Botswana: Huawei Technologies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Botswana Open University for the establishment of a new information and communications technology (ICT) academy. The MoU forms part of the Huawei ICT academy which was established in 2013, and has, since 2015, partnered with more than 600 universities to establish ICT centres.
3. March – Namibia: Through its Embassy in Namibia, China has pledged 1,000 testing kits for COVID-19 to support Namibia’s health ministry. The kits are being sent in order to bolster the level of preparedness of Namibia’s health system in the event of an outbreak occurring in the Southern African country.
This article is published in The Econometer section of ChinAfrica magazine (April 2020), an English and French language monthly publication that provides news, views and analysis on all things China, Africa and China-Africa relations.