Prof. Humphrey Moshi, Director of the Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Dar es Salaam published an article titled Xi Jinping's book ‘Up and Out of Poverty’: Some Lessons for Africa on the Citizen on 20 February. The article highly commends President Xi Jinping's concepts and propositions on poverty alleviation, elaborates on the significant inspirations his book provides for Africa's poverty eradication efforts. Below is the full text of the article.

In his 29-chapter book, Xi Jinping (2016) outlines "the hows" of transforming a poverty-stricken region (Ningde Prefecture) into a prosperous region through a change of mindset, economic development and management, and good leadership. Having read the book, I feel that there are a lot of issues which appear to be of extreme relevance to the African context as the continent struggles to exit from poverty. 

However, I am not advocating their adoption (CUT AND PASTE) but for their adaptation to reflect the realities or characteristics of and diversities existing in the African continent. This being the case, I have identified three critical areas which appear to be relevant to the African context, but conspicuously missing from Africa's contemporary poverty reduction initiatives. These identified areas should be the critical ingredients for informing policy-makers, at various levels, in charting out the way to end poverty in Africa. 

First and foremost is the need to change the mindset on the condition of poverty. That is, “poverty alleviation requires a change of attitude and mentally wearing away at the poverty mentality" (Page 7). In other words, this means that poverty is not a destiny; it can be challenged and ultimately overcome. This is both an inspiration and motivation to do something about it, given that all developed countries were also, at some point in their past, embroiled in poverty.

The second issue is with regard to the need to use the available resources to fight poverty. In most cases, in a poverty ridden area, the most abundant resources are in agriculture in terms of crops, forestry, livestock, and marine products. This being the case, the economics of developing the resources to ensure their effective and efficient use is the main conduit for lifting a country from poverty. In this regard, one needs to recall that over 64% of Africa's households are dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.This is the"economic chorus"according to the Xi Jinping (Page 11-12). Likewise, industrialization of such areas should be resource-based by processing the products of the agricultural sector. This aspect underscores the close connection between the two sectors, namely, agriculture and industry. This being the case, it is advised that in drafting a sound industrial policy, the focus should be on "leveraging agriculture to develop industry, while also using the developing industrial sector to support agriculture"(Page 135). This phenomenon underscores the symbiotic relationship existing between the two sectors.

The third issue is that mobilization of the people and effective leadership are critical ingredients to address poverty. Xi Jinping insists that this requires “(leaders)at all levels to become deeply involved with the people in real situations, always coming from the people and going to the people"(Page 17).He further outlines the qualities of an effective leadership which can drive development. The leader must be credible, disciplined, diligent, not corrupt, and humble. These attributes, according to Xi Jinping, are necessary if leaders are to enjoy the people's trust and support.

Furthermore, leaders must be a role model by being selfless, doing practical things rationally, and promoting scientific thinking and reasoning. In others, effective poverty alleviation demands leadership which is visionary, people-development oriented and walks the talk. 

The adoption of Xi Jinping's thoughts advocated in his book has lead to lifting of Chinese people from poverty within a short period of about four decades and provides critical lessons to Africa in its quest for poverty alleviation.

This being the case, the ball is now on Africa's court to proactively participate in China-Africa cooperation platforms with a view to modernizing agriculture, spearheading industrialization and ultimately accelerating the process of poverty alleviation.