On November 4, 2019, a delegation of Division of Priority Africa Coordination, UNESCO and Presidential Delegation of African Higher Education Institutions, led by Mr. Du Yue, Director of Division of Priority Africa Coordination paid a visit to Xidian University, President Zongkai Yang met the delegation.

QuanWang, Assistant President, representatives from Division of International Cooperation and Exchanges, College of Undergraduate，Graduate School, Institute of Research, School of Telecommunication Engineering, School of Electronic Engineering, School of Computer Science and Technology, School of Cyber Engineering and School of Artificial Intelligence, Program Officer of Secretariat of National Commission of the People's Republic of China for UNESCO andGaoxin High-tech Industrial Development Zone of Xi’an attended the meeting. Vice President Xinbo Gao hosted the meeting.

Zongkai Yang gave an introduction to Xidian University. He said that Xidian thinks highly of global initiatives and takes it as one of the important strategies to promote future development of the university.African countries are Xidian’s important partners and one of the most important sources of international students. In recent years, Xidian has fostered more than 500 engineers for Africa, and run China's first school in Africa in the field of electronic information to train local talents for Africa. Xidian is willing to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with universities in African and boosts local economic and social development of Africa.

Du Yue said that the purpose of this visit is to implement the outcomes of the Beijing Forum and further deepen the cooperation between China and African countries. Thevisit to Xidian is part of the Academic Collaboration in Innovation for Sustainable Development of Africa Initiative, initiated by Division of Priority Africa Coordination, UNESCO as one of the actions to promote a strategic win-win cooperation between China and Africa under the framework of China-Africa Cooperation Forum Beijing Summit. Xi’an and Xidian are important partners of the initiative, and hehopes all parts could take this visit as a start to promote further collaborations.

Ibrahim Garba, Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria，Sherif Sedky, Executive President of Zewail City of Science and Technology, Zewail City of Science and Technology, Egypt，Pedro Magalhaes, Rector of Agostinho Neto University, Angola，Celestino Obua, Vice Chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda，Papa Alioune Sarr Ndiaye, Director General of Polytechnic Institute of the University Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal，Hicham Cherkaoui, Director of Educational Programmes and Representative of the Secretary General, University Mohammed 6 Polytechnic (UM6P), Morocco，Richard Musabe, Dean of the School of ICT, College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda, Rwanda gave speeches as representatives of the Delegation. They put forward some specific plans about research and talent cultivation collaborations with Xidian.After the meeting, they visited university museum and university scenic tower.