China’s foreign and development aid goes back almost as far as the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949. It has ranged from military and humanitarian aid to North Korea and Vietnam in the 1950s, to large-scale projects in Africa in particular, to a restructured model including finance institutions designed to pursue common development, and more recently the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Common threads have been a response to perceived United States aggression and containment, competition with Taiwan for diplomatic recognition, projection of Chinese power and influence and access to natural resources under a win-win formula.

It has mostly been state-led one way or another. This is where grants totalling US$1 million to 10 young African entrepreneurs just presented in Ghana are different. They are the first payouts from a decade-long investment in the continent’s start-ups by Alibaba Group founder and former chairman Jack Ma. They could prove a landmark in philanthropy by Chinese entrepreneurs. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.

African start-ups get US$1 million boost from Jack Ma’s Netpreneur Prize

Ma set up a US$10 million prize fund last year and pledged to build a community of 100 young African entrepreneurs over a decade, with 10 chosen each year. The goal is to identify start-ups in the region with the potential to become another Alibaba or Google. A judging panel including Ma, an adviser on youth entrepreneurs to the UN conference on Trade and Development, assessed start-up proposals pitched by local entrepreneurs. The 10 young winners shared prizes ranging from US$65,000 to US$250,000. Ma says Africa, with “no logistics, no e-commerce, no payment” is like China 20 years ago. Future growth lay with entrepreneurs who could find solutions to the continent’s needs.