China-Africa Economic Engagement: Implications for Human Capital Development in Africa

China’s economic engagement with Africa has garnered considerable attention in academic and policy circles as well as in the global media over the past two decades. The implications of the engagement for Africa’s development have been a subject of debate in popular and academic literature, with experts offering differing views on Africa’s development trajectory. Among the contentious issues in China–Africa discourse is the impact of Chinese engagement on human capital development (HCD) in Africa. Many valid questions have been raised about the potential of Chinese investments to add value to African industries and contribute to HCD in Africa.

Drawing on dependency theory and human capital theory, this dissertation investigates China’s economic engagement with Africa. Specifically, it examines in what ways, if any, Chinese economic engagement contributes to HCD in Africa and the role of the host African governments in leveraging the engagement for HCD. This study employs both a conceptual research and an empirical research approach. The empirical part of the dissertation investigates the contributions and implications of the engagement for HCD by drawing on the case of a Chinese multinational company, Huawei, operating in Nigeria. This dissertation comprises two main parts: Part I is the synthesis, also referred to as the summary, and Part II consists of four original research articles, referred to as sub-studies. Together, they address the aims of this study.

Sub-studies 1 and 2 are conceptual are in nature and are aimed at unpacking the China– Africa economic engagement. Relying on dependency theory, Sub-study 1 analyses China’s presence in Africa and creates a basis for understanding the engagement and what it means for Africa’s development trajectory. Sub-study 2 draws on dependency theory and human capital theory to propose a framework for investigating the potential outcomes of new forms of economic engagements between countries. It also illustrates how the framework can be utilised to study the potential outcomes of the China–Africa economic engagement.

Sub-studies 3 and 4 are empirical works that investigate the contributions of Chinese
enterprises to HCD in Africa and the role of the host government in leveraging the engagement for HCD. Sub-studies 3 and 4 focus on the case of Huawei.

The findings show that China–Africa engagement signifies a growing interdependency between China and African countries, driven by their strategic interests and objectives. The engagement is economically pragmatic, offering African countries an alternative in their choice of development partners. The engagement presents both opportunities and challenges for Africa – opportunities to realise concrete economic gains that foster development in their respective economies and a challenge to steer the engagement in a direction that is beneficial for Africa’s development and mitigate the potential negative effects of the engagement.

This study finds that the China–Africa economic engagement also offers opportunities for HCD in Africa. Findings from the Huawei case study indicate that Chinese enterprises operating in Africa are well placed to contribute to HCD by way of local employment generation, training and skill building and technology and knowledge transfer through their operations and investments in their host country. Importantly, these opportunities tend to vary across sectors and countries because of the differences in sectoral and contextual conditions. With the help of local content policies and strategies for active collaboration with Chinese enterprises, host African governments can successfully leverage Chinese economic engagement for HCD in their countries.

This study contributes to one’s understanding of the China–Africa economic engagement and provides case-based empirical evidence on the possible implications for HCD in Africa.