By Yiyuan Qi and William Olichney As China’s overseas financing activities expand across the globe, the need for reliable, detailed and publicly accessible data has grown as well. Researchers, policymakers, civil society and journalists increasingly rely on third-party databases to understand the scale, nature and impact of China’s global lending. A small group of independent […]
By Samantha Igo As a record-breaking heat wave strains energy grids and risks public health across Europe, policymakers, activists and experts convene in Seville, Spain from June 30 to July 3 for the highly anticipated 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4). These rather rare policy events (the last was 10 years ago in […]
By Yan Wang and Yinyin Xu Energy poverty remains a persistent and widespread development challenge across Africa, where more than 600 million people, primarily in sub-Saharan regions, still lack reliable access to electricity. This situation accounts for over 80 percent of the global electricity access gap. Even though many African countries are rich in natural […]
By Claire Paul and Maureen Heydt To mark the tenth anniversary of China’s historic Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) will be held in Beijing next week, with several international leaders scheduled to attend. The BRI is an ambitious global infrastructure platform to expand connectivity, economic […]
By Hua-Ke (Kate) Chi On Thursday, January 26, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center hosted a webinar discussion for the 2023 update of the China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) Database, a global, harmonized, validated and geolocated database recording loan commitments from two major development finance institutions (DFIs) in China, the China Development Bank […]
After providing a staggering amount of finance for overseas development projects in the wake of the global financial crisis, Chinese overseas development finance has been on a general downward trend for several years. What is the status of China’s overseas development finance in the COVID-19 era? And looking forward, how likely is China to return […]
China’s overseas development finance has funneled nearly half a trillion dollars to developing countries since 2008. This stepwise increase in available development finance has the potential to make a much-needed dent in the infrastructure gaps developing countries face, estimated at more than $3 trillion per year. Given the impressive scale of this new source of […]
China is now the world’s largest source of bilateral development finance and will likely continue to play a prominent role in sovereign lending through its multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A new journal article published in Nature’s Scientific Data by a team of Boston University Global Development Policy Center researchers introduces major methodological enhancements […]
China has become one of the world’s largest lenders in overseas development finance. Development projects, such as roads, railways and power plants, can often result in biodiversity loss and infringement on Indigenous lands, yet the risks implicit in China’s overseas development finance have until now been poorly understood. In a new journal article published in […]
By Hongbo Yang and Rebecca Ray China is now the world’s largest source of bilateral development finance and will likely continue to play a prominent role in providing sovereign loans to developing countries through its multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative. This substantial increase in global development finance could potentially bring major benefits to the world […]