7 June, 2012 --- The opening ceremony of the “Seminar on Rural Public Service and Comprehensive Poverty Reduction for Officials from Francophone Africa”, sponsored by Ministry of Commerce of the P.R.C and organized by the IPRCC, took place at Beijing Fraternal Cooperation International Hotel. Mr. Wang Shu, Assistant Director General of IPRCC chaired the opening session, Mr. Liu Shuwen, Deputy Director of Department of International Cooperation and Social Mobilization of LGOP addressed the opening ceremony, and Ms. Julia Raymonde Sasembo, Director of Ministry of Youth and Recreation in Madagascar delivered a speech on behalf of all participants.

Themed on “Rural Public Service and Comprehensive Poverty Reduction”, the seminar is composed of four parts: expert lecture, country-specific presentation, case analysis and field trip. Experts and scholars will introduce the general situation of China’s national economic and social development, the overall framework and implementation mode of China’s rural public service, and the policies and experience related to rural financial service, agricultural sci-tech service, education, health, social security and community governance. They will also systematically analyze the establishment and improvement of the rural public service system, and its crucial role and challenges remained in the process of achieving sustainable development, to that extent, this seminar is expected to promote the knowledge sharing and experience exchanging between China Africa. In the session of country-specific presentations, participating representatives from various countries will be invited to present their systems, policies, effects, challenges and experience of rural public service respectively. In addition, participants will travel to Gansu province to investigate various projects related to special rural poverty alleviation and development, agricultural production, rural infrastructure construction, rural education, health development, rural community governance, rural sci-tech extension, and financial service.

A total of 19 participants working in the sector of poverty reduction and development from 10 countries including Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Central Africa, Mauritania, Djibouti and Guinea attended the event.