Report Launch: Aid or Investment, and What is at Stake? Lessons from China when Global Health is at a Crossroads

This event took place on October 24th, 2025 and was hosted online via Zoom webinar.

Jennifer Bouey presented her report that examines China’s global health activities in Africa as they grew in scale and evolved in response to the changing focus of Chinese foreign policy. The urgency of understanding China’s global health activities has intensified due to converging factors: the COVID-19 pandemic elevated the visibility of China’s medical supply and vaccine aid in Africa; the new U.S. “American First Global Health Strategy” explicitly recognizes China as a global health competitor, and China’s 2021 Global Development Initiative (GDI) is reforming its foreign aid policies and striving to reshape development norms in an increasingly multipolar world. This in-depth analysis of China’s health aid history, presence in Africa, and potential changes offers insights for US global health policy makers and the public to understand the advantages and weaknesses of China’s health aid. It will also be useful for African stakeholders as they optimize new donor relationships to step up local capacity strengthening.

Drawing on mixed-methods research including a desk review of both English and Chinese language policy documents, quantitative analysis of China’s health aid flows, and qualitative field studies in Kenya and Sierra Leone, this study offers an independent assessment of how Chinese health aid operates, how it is perceived by African stakeholders, and its implications for global health governance.

This event was co-sponsored by the Africa-China Initiative and the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues.

Featured

Jennifer Bouey, Tang Chair for China Policy Studies, RAND Corporation; Associate Professor and Chair for the Department of Global Health at Georgetown University

Discussant:

Yanzhong  Huang, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations; Professor and Director of Global Health Studies, Seton Hall University, School of Diplomacy and International Relations