Five Years Together for Development, Joining Hands towards a Win-Win Future

Development holds the master key to solving all problems. On 21 September 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative (GDI) for the first time at the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, offering China’s solution to reinvigorating the global development cause. Five years later, on 25 September 2026, the High-Level Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative was held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the dialogue. Chinese Vice President Han Zheng attended the event, read out President Xi’s congratulatory letter and delivered remarks. More than 300 representatives from over 60 countries, including Bangladesh, and more than 20 international organisations attended the dialogue, fully demonstrating the strong international appeal of the Initiative.

Prioritising Development: An Initiative Rich in Substance and in Step with the Times
President Xi Jinping noted in his congratulatory letter that he proposed the GDI five years ago to advance international development cooperation, reinvigorate the global development cause, and help accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The GDI advocates forging a united, equal, balanced and inclusive global development partnership. Its core ideas are embodied in six principles: staying committed to development as a priority by putting development high on the global macro policy agenda and promoting greater synergy between policy coordination among major economies and multilateral development cooperation; staying committed to a people-centred approach by taking the improvement of people’s quality of life as the ultimate goal and striving for people’s well-rounded development; staying committed to inclusiveness and benefits for all by working to narrow the North-South gap and ensuring that no country or individual is left behind; staying committed to innovation-driven development by promoting broader sharing of scientific and technological advances and helping developing countries bridge the technology gap; staying committed to harmony between humanity and nature by accelerating the green and low-carbon transition; and staying committed to results-orientated actions by translating political will into concrete projects and practical mechanisms.
Together, these six principles answer a series of major theoretical and practical questions central to global development: who development is for, who it relies on, what kind of development should be pursued, and how development should be achieved.

Answering the Call of the World: Fruitful Outcomes and Far-Reaching Significance
Five years of sustained efforts have seen the GDI evolve from a Chinese proposal into an international consensus and from a cooperation concept into collective action. President Xi Jinping stressed in his congratulatory letter that over the past five years, cooperation projects under the Initiative have taken root and yielded outcomes in more than 120 countries, writing a new chapter of common development and win-win cooperation.
Over the past five years, more than 130 countries and international organisations have actively supported the GDI and participated in cooperation under the Initiative. More than 30 GDI cooperation mechanisms and platforms have been established. More than 2,000 cooperation projects, all closely aligned with the needs of beneficiary countries, have been carried out, and more than 10,000 human resources training programmes have been organised to help developing countries build up their capacity for self-reliant development.
Looking ahead, China has put forward four proposals: strengthening solidarity and coordination to fully implement the Sustainable Development Goals; staying action-orientated and actively pursuing development that benefits the people; expanding cooperation in priority areas and accelerating empowerment-driven development; and strengthening partnerships to promote interconnected development.
China also announced that it will launch an engineering capacity-building programme to train 10,000 engineers for developing countries over the next five years. The programme will cover areas such as transport infrastructure and information and communications technology, helping relevant countries improve their infrastructure and strengthen development resilience. These practical measures fully demonstrate China’s sense of responsibility as a major country and its role as a staunch advocate and pragmatic actor in the global development cause.

Building Bridges of Cooperation: China and Bangladesh Join Hands to Deliver Benefits to the People Through Win-Win Cooperation
The Global Development Initiative is highly aligned with Bangladesh’s development strategies. In June 2026, witnessed by Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, the two sides signed interdepartmental development cooperation documents, including agreements on implementing the Global Development Initiative and jointly developing human resources.
In September 2026, China and Bangladesh held the first meeting of the China-Bangladesh Development Cooperation Mechanism, during which the two sides had in-depth exchanges of views on advancing the implementation of the Global Development Initiative and other issues related to bilateral development cooperation.
In recent years, with support from the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, China and the United Nations system have jointly implemented the Livelihoods Support for Urban Poor Communities in Bangladesh Project. Through vocational skills training and the provision of productive assets such as sewing machines and information technology equipment, the project has helped local people start or expand micro and small businesses. As of June this year, the project had reached 387,000 people across six cities. These tangible cooperation outcomes demonstrate that the Global Development Initiative is not an abstract concept but a plan of action capable of bringing real and concrete benefits to the people of Bangladesh.
Five years on, the original aspiration remains unchanged, and a new journey beckons. At this new starting point marking the fifth anniversary of the Global Development Initiative, China stands ready to work with Bangladesh and other countries of the Global South to keep development as a priority, uphold a people-centred approach, and jointly foster a global development environment that is more equitable, open and inclusive.
As China and Bangladesh move forward hand in hand, the vision of common development will become ever more tangible and accessible, and the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity will steadily become a reality.
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The writer is the Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of China in Bangladesh