Energy infrastructure facilitates economic growth, generates jobs, increases productivity and reduces the cost of doing business. Yet, many African countries experience a wide range of energy deficits, including low rates of electricity access and a lack of clean cooking fuels and technologies. About 600 million people—43 percent of Africa’s population—lacked access to electricity in 2021. […]
By Niccolò Manych and Ishana Ratan The year 2023 marks the tenth anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the last decade, the BRI has evolved into the world’s largest international investment program. In 2022, the annual financial volume reached $67.8 billion, with a significant portion directed towards the power sector. Notably, investments […]
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 […]
In the new book “Development Banks and Sustainability in the Andean Amazon,” authors Rebecca Ray, Kevin P. Gallagher, and Cynthia A. Sanborn explore what development banks, governments, and communities have learned in the last decade of careful negotiation between social and environmental protections in the Andean Amazon, and the pressures of surging infrastructure and the boom […]
In a recent study, Rebecca Ray examined multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the power distribution of the countries that borrow from them. Access the full Appendix below to review supplementary materials.
In July 2014, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the BRICS— agreed to establish a new multilateral development bank (MDB), the New Development Bank (NDB). In October of the same year, China and 20 other Asian nations signed an agreement to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The declared aim of both […]