The 7th China-Africa Media Cooperation Forum was held in Beijing from August 19 to 21, 2026, under the theme 'Sharing Development Opportunities, Shaping the Audiovisual Future.' The biennial event brought together media executives, technology experts and professionals from both continents.
Artificial intelligence took center stage in the discussions, presented as a lever to modernize often-aging African broadcast infrastructure. China's Minister of the National Radio and Television Administration, Cao Shumin, stressed AI's impact on content production and distribution.
A framework agreement was approved at the forum to structure technological exchanges and the training of African professionals in digital tools — an approach the African Union of Broadcasting's director general, Grégoire Ndjaka, described as a 'bridge between cultures.'
This cooperation differs from more traditional China-Africa partnerships, usually centered on physical infrastructure: it instead bets on skills transfer and empowering local teams rather than simply supplying equipment.
For Cameroonian media, public and private alike, access to this training could speed up the modernization of content production — provided a sufficient regulatory framework governs the use of these tools, to avoid trading one form of technological dependency for another.
The forum thus closes a chapter on intentions, but mainly opens a new one: whether African media can adapt these tools to their own editorial priorities, rather than simply importing a model designed elsewhere.
