By Congyi Dai Minerals are the main inputs needed for manufacturing clean energy technologies such as lithium-ion batteries, solar photovoltaic panels, electric vehicles and wind turbines. They are essential resources to the global clean energy transition. China has a dominating role in mineral processing. It refines 35% of the world’s nickel, 50-70% of lithium and […]
By Tianyi Wu The portfolio of financiers participating in China’s overseas development finance is changing. Between 2000 and 2019, development finance institutions (DFIs), primarily the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Development Bank, dominated sovereign lending to Africa, committing over $143 billion across transport, energy and ICT (information and communications technology) sectors. Since 2018, […]
As late as 1984, half of China’s exports consisted of raw materials, including oil, coal, food and livestock. After 47 years of reform and opening, China has transformed itself from an agrarian economy into a manufacturing powerhouse. With the country’s expanding development finance and deepening economic engagement with the Global South, it has come to […]
By Mengdi Yue China and Africa’s economic relationship has continued to evolve over the last decade. Recent milestones include the ten partnership actions announced at the 2024 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Green Mining and Minerals Initiative launched at the 2025 Johannesburg G20 summit and China’s most recent expansion of its […]
A series of concurrent shocks have posed significant challenges to the African continent, including the recent global pullback by the US whose effects fall disproportionately on Africa. Despite these headwinds, Africa has experienced steady economic growth since 2000. The continent’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates are projected to be 3.9 percent in 2025 […]
By Tianyi Wu The current debt and development crisis in the Global South has resurfaced a long-standing tension in sovereign development finance: do tools designed to assess fiscal risk account for the investment needs countries must meet to grow out of debt? Recent debates often ask whether developing countries are facing unsustainable debt burdens. An […]
In 2019, China introduced the Belt and Road Initiative Debt Sustainability Framework (BRI–DSF) for low-income countries (LICs), offering a critical window into sovereign lending risk assessment practices. The rise of China as a bilateral lender raises the question of how Chinese development finance institutions (DFIs) generate and apply risk signals when lending to LICs, and […]
To reinforce commitments to international cooperation and policy research for global change, the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center has officially signed a new international academic partnership with the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (SUIBE), aimed to bridge academic collaboration and action for policy solutions across borders. Last month, Meibo Huang from SUIBE visited […]
By Keyi Tang As development finance tightens, the most important question may not be who is lending, but how domestic politics shapes where the money goes. When a foreign-financed road is opened, the picture is clear that this project will connect farmers to markets, lower transport costs and bring neglected communities closer to opportunity. But […]
By early 2025, debt servicing pressures had intensified. Interest payments exceed 10 percent of government revenues in 56 developing countries—double the level a decade earlier—and surpass 20 percent in 17 countries. Without substantial relief, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) warns of a potential “lost decade” for development. Rising debt distress has renewed concerns over […]