<p>President Xi Jinping’s keynote address at the 2024 FOCAC Beijing Summit marked a new phase in comprehensive China-Africa cooperation, with ten strategic partnership initiatives, several of which directly target education, vocational training, and digital innovation. Despite the growing scale and ambition of these programs, empirical understanding of their implementation, outcomes, and long-term impacts on African higher education systems remains limited. This integrative review systematically synthesizes evidence from 32 diverse sources to address three key questions: how FOCAC initiatives have been operationalized across African countries, what outcomes they have generated for national higher education systems, and what challenges and limitations constrain their effectiveness. The analysis reveals that while the initiatives have contributed to capacity building, knowledge exchange, and infrastructural development, persistent gaps remain in aligning programs with African development priorities, ensuring sustainability, and evaluating long-term institutional impact. Drawing on these findings, the review outlines evidence-informed directions for future Sino-African higher education cooperation, emphasizing the need for coordinated, context-sensitive, and mutually beneficial strategies that advance institutional reform, foster regional development, and maximize the transformative potential of these partnerships. By consolidating diverse empirical and policy perspectives, this study provides a robust foundation for guiding both research and policy agendas in the evolving landscape of China-Africa educational collaboration.</p>