AidData, a research lab at William and Mary, published in September 2021 a massive study titled "Banking on the Belt and Road: Insights from a New Global Dataset of 13,427 Chinese Development Projects."
The study captures 13,427 projects worth $843 billion in 165 countries from 2000-2017, a period that began before the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Five key conclusions result from the study:
1. There was an extraordinary expansion in China's overseas development finance program during the first two decades of the 21st century, most of which was other official financing (OOF) and not overseas development assistance (ODA). OOF consisted almost entirely of loans and export credits priced at or near market rates.
2. China's state-owned commercial banks have assumed an increasingly important role during the BRI.
3. An increasing level of credit risk have created pressure for stronger repayment safeguards. Collateralization has become the linchpin of China's implementation of a high-risk, high-reward credit allocation strategy.
4. The implementation of the BRI has marked an important transition in how China bankrolls infrastructure projects.
5. Some 35 percent of the BRI infrastructure project portfolio has encountered major implementation problems such as corruption scandals, labor violations, environmental hazards, and public protests.
Africa accounted for 25 percent of the US dollar value of global Chinese official finance from 2000-2017. Africa received 42 percent of the ODA and 20 percent of the OOF. The highest African recipients of ODA were Ethiopia ($6.57 billion), Republic of Congo ($4.24 billion), Sudan ($2.57 billion), Ghana ($2.22 billion), Zambia ($2.10 billion), Kenya ($2.03 billion), Cameroon ($1.46 billion), Mozambique ($1.40 billion), Senegal ($1.27 billion), Mali ($1.06 billion), and Cote d'Ivoire ($0.92 billion). The highest African recipients of OOF were Angola ($40.65 billion), Ethiopia ($8.90 billion), Sudan ($7.85 billion), Kenya ($7.02 billion), and Nigeria ($6.82 billion).
