Gallagher & GDP Center Researchers Publish Articles in “Nature“
Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and Director of BU’s Global Development Policy Center (GDP Center), and researchers from the GDP Center published two journal articles related to work at the GDP Center on China’s overseas development finance (CODF). The findings and methodology behind the Center’s CODF database underlying dataset were covered in two Nature articles.
The first article, published in Nature’s Scientific Data and titled “Geolocated dataset of Chinese overseas development finance,” explains the data collection and verification process for the CODF dataset, enabling a better understanding of the economic, social, and environmental effects of China’s overseas development finance. The full article can be read on Nature‘s website.
The second article, published in Nature‘s Ecology & Evolution (Nature E&E) and titled “Risks to global biodiversity and Indigenous lands from China’s overseas development finance,” was co-authored with scientists at the BU Department of Earth and Environment. Leveraging the CODF dataset, the Nature E&E article assesses the risks to global biodiversity and Indigenous lands from China’s overseas development projects, finding on average higher levels of risk to both biodiversity and Indigenous lands than similar projects by the World Bank. According to data from the database, 63% of Chinese financed projects overlap with critical habitats, protected areas, and/or Indigenous lands with the greatest risk found in South America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. The full article can be read on Nature‘s website.
In discussing the findings from the GDP Center’s database, Gallagher said the following:
While the World Bank’s development projects are not without their risks to biodiversity and Indigenous communities, the approach to environmental and social risk management taken by China as the world’s largest bilateral lender has global ramifications. By strengthening oversight for its international lending operations, China will set an example that other lenders around the world will not be able to ignore.
The findings were also the subject of an article in The Conversation.
Kevin Gallagher is a professor of global development policy at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, where he directs the Global Development Policy Center. He is the author or co-author of six books, including most recently, The China Triangle: Latin America’s China Boom and the Fate of the Washington Consensus. Read more about Professor Gallagher on his Pardee School faculty profile.