It is argued that China’s relationship with Africa has transformed into one defined by a dynamism and African agency, thereby lessening the hold the former previously had on Africa in the early days of this evolving alliance. First, the authors will conduct a literature review of historical Sino–African relations, from the early Han dynasty to its contemporary manifestations. The second section will continue with this analysis by focusing exclusively on the status quo of the Sino–African economic relationship, including analysis of trade flows, investments, development, economic cooperation, and Chinese support for regional integration. Finally, this paper will conclude with an elaboration of some key, emerging relationship areas, such as opportunities for China and Africa to collaborate on the achievement of the latter’s Agenda 2063 and African Mining Vision.

While prior research has looked at big data’s role in strengthening the environmental justice movement, scholars rarely examine the contexts, mechanisms and processes associated with the use of big data in monitoring and deterring environmental offenders, especially in the Global South. As such, this research aims to substitute for this academic gap through the use of multiple case studies of environmental offenders’ engagement in illegal deforestation, as well as legal deforestation followed by fire. Specifically, we have chosen four cases from three economies in the Global South: Indonesia, Peru and Brazil. We demonstrate how the data utilized by environmental activists in these four cases qualify as true forms of big data, as they have searched and aggregated data from various sources and employed them to achieve their goals. The article shows how big data from various sources, mainly from satellite imagery, can help discern the true extent of environmental destruction caused by various offenders and present convincing evidence. The article also discusses how a rich satellite imagery archive is suitable for analyzing chronological events in order to establish a cause-effect chain. In all of the cases studied, such evidentiary provisions have been used by environmental activists to oblige policy makers to take necessary actions to counter environmental offenses.

This paper explores the current transition from the MDG framework to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework in the post-2015 development agenda, with specific emphasis on how the SDGs with their aim of ‘Transforming our World’ might guide economic development and policy in Africa. The aim is to investigate the scope and implications of the post-MDG Agenda for Africa against the background of distinct disparities in development progress across the African continent, rapid urbanization, the availability of new technologies, and the emergence of parallel comprehensive new frameworks for managing global climate change and for creating synergies between China’s transformation over the coming decades and Africa’s Agenda 2063. Drawing on the changing shape of development finance and new insights into the role of public entrepreneurship for development, we make proposals for advancing African agency in the context of these new frameworks, and conclude with policy recommendations for the future.