全球智库信息集成服务系统

African countries are the largest recipients of the Chinese government’s human resource development programmes, including in the forestry sector. This research explores both provider and recipients’ experience of the programmes to date; it also describes the training priorities of African forestry experts and the capacity of Chinese organisations to deliver them. We reveal strengths and gaps in the current training, and suggest how the latter can be bridged. This briefing concludes that all future China–Africa forestry development cooperation initiatives should be based on a joint needs assessment, context-specific design, and collaborative implementation and follow-up, to ensure that human resource development programmes build organisations’ capacity to support truly sustainable forestry.