Twenty Years of China's Loans to Africa

 The China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) recently posted a briefing paper titled "Twenty Years of Data on China's Africa Lending" by Kevin Acker and Deborah Brautigam.

In 2019, Chinese financiers committed $7 billion to African borrowers, down 30 percent from $9.9 billion in 2018.  CARI believes this dip continued through 2020 but does not foresee a sustained drop in Chinese lending to Africa.

China-DRC: Resource-for-Infrastructure Deal

The China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies published in May 2018 a study titled "The Risks and Rewards of Resource-for-Infrastructure Deals: Lessons from the Congo's Sicomines Agreement" by David G. Landry, researcher and consultant.

The Sicomines resource-for-infrastructure agreement signed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and China in 2007 outlined a mammoth deal worth over $9 billion. It was subsequently scaled back considerably but has remained highly contentious. This paper explores the agreement and highlights the role risk has played from its inception until now. The author concludes that the deal has become much less lucrative for China, largely due to the downward reevaluation of the copper mine's estimated deposits, the downward spiral in copper prices, the the delays and setbacks that have plagued the operations.

CARI also published a policy brief with the same title.

Somali Diaspora Investment Survey

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) commissioned Shuraako (a project of the One Earth Future Foundation) to conduct the Somali Diaspora Investment Survey. They released a summary of their findings on 21 April 2016. The project gathered information about the preferences and behaviors of the Somali diaspora toward existing channels and opportunities for Somali-based investments, and provided policy recommendations to better facilitate investment.