Provided to China Daily

Meanwhile, the new water purification agents provided by China not only lowered the chemical and energy costs, but also helped save about 355,000 tons of backwash water each year.

Positioning South Africa right in China

Building bridges

As an educator, Li often says, "Giving a man a fish is not better than teaching him how to fish". He hopes that more environmental talents can be trained to help people in developing countries promote sustainable development.

In addition to undertaking research on international environment issues, he also provided training for both domestic and overseas environmental officers and students for sustainable development through the UNEP-Tongji Institute for Environment for Sustainable Development (IESD).

The institute developed a number of specialties for the cultivation of senior technical and managerial personnel, such as water resource reservation, industrial ecology and environment management, eco-city planning and management, energy and environment, economic development and ecological protection, environmental informatics, environmental monitoring and remote control, environmental value analysis, regional and global environmental studies.

So far, more than 3,000 representatives from governments, NGO, institutions and private sectors from developing countries have benefited from more than 50 training programs at the institute.

Li's tremendous efforts have paid off. Last year, he was honored with the UN prize "In Recognition of Special Contribution to South-South and Triangle Cooperation" due to his significant contribution to the China-Africa cooperation on the safe water supply technology transfer during the 2013 Global South-South Development (GSSD) Expo held in the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.

"In spite of substantial progress achieved in the projects, there is still a long way to go due to the factors restraining cooperation among developing countries, such as regional conflict and asymmetric information, But we will spare no efforts in the poverty reduction and economic development and most importantly, maintaining a sound ecosystem in this beautiful African continent," Li said at the awards ceremony.

This month, Li went to Africa again, working as special coordinator of UNEP in a one year stint. This is his 40th trip to the continent. "Here, I will continue to devote myself to strengthening the South-South Cooperation. Africa is still lagging behind other places in terms of social and economic development, but I think the continent will definitely have a better future in next 10 years," he says.