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South Africa and China sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of environmental management
Minister Zhou Shengxian of the Peoples Republic of China and South Africa's Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa shaking hands
South Africa and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation in the field of Environmental Management on 26 August 2010 during President Zuma’s State Visit to China.
The main objective of the MoU is to promote cooperative efforts of environmental protection and to promote collaboration and exchange between the two countries in the environmental field, in order to preserve and improve the environment for present and future generations.
The MoU on Environment outlines a number of priority areas of cooperation between the two countries, which are as follows:
- biodiversity conservation
- environmental management
- implementation of environmental policies
- environmental monitoring, compliance and enforcement
- environmental technology
- management of hazardous and toxic wastes
- other areas related to the objective referred
On 7 July 2011, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Minister E Molewa had a bilateral meeting with Minister of the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of the PRC, Minister Zhou Shengxian
The main objective of the meeting was to discuss the plan of implementation of the signed MoU and how to engage both parties in a strategic manner for skills development, capacity building and exploratory exchange visits of environment technical officials.
The Ministers proposed that this be taken forward by officials from both countries. Minister Zhou Shengxian mentioned that the Ministry of Environmental Protection does training of officials in environmental management and is looking forward at increasing training of officials from developing countries. Hence MEP invited DEA officials to participate in environmental training programmes.
Subsequent to this, the China Embassy in SA indicated that MEP proposes to arrange a workshop in China to jointly discuss potential opportunities related to implementation of priority areas listed in the MoU later this year or early next year. In preparation for DEA participation at this proposal, the Directorate Africa & Bilateral Relations plans to conduct a briefing session to provide an opportunity for the respective DEA Branches to develop the plan of action which will be discussed and finalized with the China counterparts during the proposed exchange visit