On September 9, 2024, the 2024 China-Africa Environmental Forum opened at the Sino-French Center of Tongji University. During the forum, the Institute ofClimate and Environment for Africa was inaugurated and the report Solid Waste Management and Resource Utilization in China and Africa was released by UN-Habitat and Tongji University, with significant support from Shanghai Environmental Group Co., Ltd. Experts, scholars, industry representatives, partners, and heads of functional departments from Tongji University, as well as international organization representatives from 14 countries worldwide, attended the event.

Oumar Sylla, Director of the UN-Habitat Regional Office for Africa, Mahesh Pradhan, Coordinator of the Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and Liu Run, Vice Chairman of Tongji University Council, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony. The ceremony was hosted by Professor Wang Ying, Vice Dean of the College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Vice Dean of the UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development.

At the forum, Mr. Oumar Sylla, Professor Liu Run, Professor Xu Bin, and Professor Li Fengting jointly inaugurated the  Institute of Climate and Environment for Africa .

Simultaneously, Mr. Oumar Sylla, Professor Wang Selan, Professor Liu Run, Professor Li Fengting, and Professor Xie Li jointly released the report Solid Waste Management and Resource Utilization in China and Africa The report focuses on urban solid waste management, particularly in megacities in Africa and China due to rapid urbanization and socio-economic development, and proposes effective countermeasures to address this issue.

In the keynote presentation session, Professor Wang Seran, Chairman of Shanghai Environment Group Co., LTD., Professor Godrick Mathews Bulitia, Vice President of Masai Mara University, and Professor Li Fengting, Academician of African Academy of Sciences and School of Environmental Science and Engineering of Tongji University, made keynote presentations. Then, the domestic and international experts at the meeting had full exchanges and discussions on issues such as water resources management methods and policies, drinking water treatment technologies and specific cases, new energy policies and sustainable development.

President Xi Jinping emphasized at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation that China-Africa friendship transcends time and space, mountains and seas, and is passed down from one generation to the next. Together, China and Africa pursuing the dream of modernization will surely spark a wave of modernization in the Global South and write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind.