Turkey has made significant contributions to the development of the African continent with its human-oriented approach in recent years, the head of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) said on Saturday.

“We have Turkey Alumni Associations in different parts of the African continent from Mali to Kenya, from Senegal to Somalia. These associations act as voluntary embassies of Turkey, and graduates as voluntary envoys of Turkey,” Abdullah Eren told Anadolu Agency ahead of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s upcoming Africa tour.

Erdogan will visit Angola, Togo, and Nigeria as part of his Africa visit starting on Sunday.

Noting that Turkey provides financial support to the successful students from African countries through its scholarship program, Eren said: “These students act as a bridge between Turkey and their home countries, and also help the development of their own countries after graduating.”

Turkiye Scholarships is a scholarship program that receives applications from the largest number of countries in the world, and this puts it among the world’s most outstanding scholarship programs.

Eren said that they have taken concrete steps in many areas to strengthen relations between Turkey and Africa, and reminded that media training activities are carried out in cooperation with Anadolu Agency and Turkish broadcaster TRT in order to develop media cooperation between the two sides./aa