Chinese Government provide grant funding for Meteorological Aid Project for 7 African Countries (Linked to Record ID#1336, #52420, #57479, and #62304)

At the Fifth Forum on China-African Cooperation (FOCAC) Ministerial Conference in July 2012, the Chinese Government proposed a Meteorological Aid Project for seven countries across Africa: Sudan, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Kenya, the DRC, Comoros, and Namibia.

The project sought to not only increase the meteorological observation capacities of these countries, but also serve China's manned spacecraft operating above the African continent.

According to the China Meteorological Administration, the project was 'activated' in 2013 and 'basically' completed in 2018.

The project outputs included: 42 sets of automatic weather stations, 100 sets of artificial meteorological observation systems, 5 sets of lightning locators, 2 sets of Fengyun-3 (FY-3) satellite data receiving and processing systems, 2 sets of high-altitude detection systems, more than 10,000 sets of weather warning radios, 4 sets of meteorological video studio, 5 sets of MICAPS, 4 sets of meteorological communication systems, and 2 sets of meteorological information storage retrieval systems.

The exact allocation of these outputs among the 7 African recipient countries is largely unknown, except for the construction and expansion of a Chinese-operated space station in Swakopmund, Namibia (captured in Record ID#1336 and ID#62304).

In 2015, the Chinese Government also donated meteorological equipment to Sudan — most likely as part of this project (as captured in Record ID#52420).