Peking University published in October 2023 a report titled "A Study on the Effectiveness of China's Sovereign Financing in Africa."
From 2000 to 2020, China provided $160 billion in loans for 1116 projects in 49 African countries. Based on a study of select projects from this list, Peking University concluded that China's loans have a generally positive impact on the economic growth of African nations, and improve the livelihood of the African people. The loans have had a significant impact on education and improved the hard infrastructure of education facilities and the literacy rate. The study also shows that loans generate a positive impact on manufacturing job creation, infrastructure development, and globalization. However, the results indicate a negative impact on agricultural job creation, which could be explained as the result of moving people from agriculture to industries.
The authors noted that the study was limited by the reliability of the data and discrepancy in the accuracy, time dimension, and the statistical caliber of loan data collected among institutions.
