Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

Forty years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development. It recognized that development is not charity, policy preference or economic ambition. It is a human right. Yet four decades later, much of the global human rights conversation still behaves as if development were optional.

Human rights were never intended to be divided into first-class and second-class categories. However, that is precisely what has happened. A government that fails to create jobs may escape serious international scrutiny. Yet one that falls short on procedural benchmarks like voting often attracts immediate condemnation. The message, intentional or not, is that how people vote matters more than whether they eat. But can a starving citizen meaningfully exercise political freedom? Can a child without education fully participate in society? Can communities trapped in poverty genuinely enjoy quality life? These questions strike at the heart of what the Declaration on the Right to Development was intended to address.

Development, therefore, is not separate from human rights. Development is the expansion of human freedom itself. This understanding should not be controversial. It is embedded in the very language of the Declaration on the Right to Development. 

Yet implementation has remained uneven because the international system often prioritizes monitoring political outcomes while paying insufficient attention to the structural conditions that make human flourishing possible. Africa has increasingly challenged this imbalance. Contrary to popular caricatures, Africa is not rejecting human rights, Africa is asking whether human rights can be considered complete when they fail to address poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, technological dependence and unequal participation in the global economy. It is a legitimate question.

China's approach to human rights protection, especially with an emphasis on the right to development, resonates across Africa. The right to development demands more than political participation. It demands meaningful participation in the production and distribution of wealth and prosperity. The continent carries roughly 18 percent of the world's population and some of the world's largest reserves of strategic minerals, arable land and youthful labor. Yet it continues to account for a disproportionately small share of global manufacturing output, technological innovation and value addition. This disconnect is a human rights problem.

This is where the growing China-Africa relationship deserves attention. Much of the discussion about China in Africa is framed through geopolitical competition. Far less attention is paid to what Africa can learn from China's development experience and what China can learn from Africa's own development aspirations. 

China's most significant contribution to the African development and global development debate is not only infrastructure financing or trade. It is empirical evidence that large-scale poverty reduction is possible within a single generation. Over four decades, China lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty, expanded infrastructure at unprecedented speed, improved literacy, healthcare and life expectancy, and transformed itself from a largely agrarian economy into a technological and industrial powerhouse. Reasonable people may debate aspects of China's political model. What is far more difficult to dispute are the developmental outcomes. 

Earlier this month, China released the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2026-2030), aiming to ensure that the principal position of the people is respected and that the people's fundamental interests are safeguarded. 

For Africa, the key lesson is not imitation. The lesson is adaptation. Africa cannot become China. Nor should it attempt to. But Africa can learn from China's long-term planning, infrastructure-led growth, state capacity, poverty alleviation strategies, industrial policy, agricultural modernization and investment in science and technology.

Africa can offer markets, talent, innovation, natural resources and cultural perspectives. China can offer technology, industrial experience, infrastructure expertise and lessons in rapid poverty reduction. That is what genuine South-South cooperation looks like - not dependency, not tutelage, not ideological conversion, but a real partnership. 

The China-Africa cooperation shows that human rights should function as a bridge for cooperation and shared progress, not as instruments of geopolitical contestation.

The author is a commissioner of the Uganda Human Rights Commission. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn