国内英语资讯:China Focus: Chinas experiences valuable to share with Africa under South-South Cooperatio_时事

国内英语资讯:China Focus: Chinas experiences valuable to share with Africa under South-South Cooperatio

China's healthcare system serves as a key factor, according to Azfar, who added that the country's efforts to realize universal health coverage, which is "something that UNICEF supports very much in countries everywhere," played an important role as well.

Between 2009 and 2016, more than 60 million women had cervical cancer screening, over 9 million had breast cancer screening in rural areas, and 74 million pregnant and lying-in women in rural areas received subsidies for hospital deliveries. The hospital delivery rate in rural areas was 99.6 percent in 2017, 7.3 percentage points higher than that of 2008.

"The challenges (facing African countries) are the lack of availability and access to services, which is a key initiative for reducing newborn deaths," Azfar said. "This is something that they can benefit to learn from China's experience."

Public health cooperation was listed among the 10 China-Africa cooperation plans by the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in Johannesburg in 2017. That same year, China announced to set up a fund with an initial contribution of 2 billion U.S. dollars, to support South-South Cooperation and assist developing countries in implementing their post-2017 development agenda.

"We were very encouraged by the fund, which will enable the exchange of experience and expertise to take place," said Azfar.

The thematic session on Friday was part of a two-day-long High-Level Meeting on China-Africa Health Cooperation, one of the activities ahead of the FOCAC Beijing summit in September.