From September 10th to 14th, the 14th African Ministerial Conference on Environment was held in Arusha, Tanzania. During the conference, Tongji organized the workshop of “China-UN-Africa Environmental Cooperation” on September 11th. Mr. Mounkaila Goumandakoye, Director of UNEP Africa office, Mr. Mohamed A.S. Abdel-Monem, Head of Ecosystem Management Team of Africa office, Mr. Jian Liu, Director of UNEP-International Ecosystem Management Partnership Program, Mr. Guang Xia, Director of Economic Policies Research Center of Chinese Ministry of Environment, and other African government officials, experts and scholars in the field of environment up to 70 participants attended this workshop.  

Mr. Mohamed hosted the workshop and introduced the background, the content and the progress of African programs. Professor Fengting Li, from IESD, Tongji University, further introduced UNEP-China-Africa Water Program in detail, and gave a comprehensive demonstration of the progress and achievement from six sub-topics: Water Resource Planning, Water Environmental Protection, Water Treatment Usage, Drought Warning, Water-Saving Agriculture, Desertification Prevention and Control.

The cooperative mechanism of China-UN-Africa, technology demonstration and promotion, technical training, technical service, joint research and development, policy research, scientific studies and donation, etc. have aroused wide attention and heated discussion, and Prof. Li answered questions from the audience. Prof. Fengting Li also gave an introduction about IESD. Many African students were very interested in learning advanced technology on environmental protection in China and consulted Prof. Li for relative information.

      The success of the conference would bring an active promotion of China-UN-Africa water program, and strengthen Sino-Africa cooperation.