Op-Ed: Furthering SSC and SDGs Through the Belt and Road Initiative
By Sarah Basham, GCDC Program Assistant
Economic strength has historically been the most common indicator for the divide between the Global North and the Global South, between developed and developing countries, and the givers and recipients of development support. In the latter half of the 20th century, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD effectively monopolized development aid, leaving the stability of developing countries dependent on aid flowing from the Global North to the Global South. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in South-South Cooperation (SSC) in which developing countries are working together to improve their economic positioning with assistance beyond that of the Global North. The most significant example of this cooperation is China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which presents a potential opportunity for increased coordination in sustainable development within the Global South if the linkages between the Initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals are strengthened.
Problems with Global-North Monopolized Development Aid
High-income countries in the Global North such as the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom have focused on promoting their economic interests and ideals for what development should look like by reforming national financial institutions, imposing trade restrictions, and providing universal solutions to complex social problems. This aid has strict definitions of development assistance and a clear distinction between the giver and recipient of aid.
The extensive amount of aid that the Global North has provided the Global South since the mid-20th century has created a global aid industrial complex where technical solutions to social problems created an entire development industry that makes money from suffering in developing countries. Development aid in this way has harmed countries more than they have helped as Global North solutions cannot be universally applied to unique situations in the Global South and often don’t align with the interests of the recipients of aid. SSC creates an opportunity for development aid that more closely aligns with national circumstances and interests, blurs the distinction between giver and recipient, and operates more readily on principles of solidarity and horizontality, as opposed to the more vertical model of North-South cooperation.
The Sustainable Development Goals
All 193 UN member states adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a framework for addressing some of the world’s most pressing issues. These goals call upon all countries — representing a range of economic strength — to join together in a global partnership to tackle issues such as poverty, climate, education, and economic growth head-on. The SDGs measure success through 169 targets and indicators for each target. The targets create a more specific blueprint on what needs to be achieved for each goal, while the indicators show what measurements signal progress and eventual completion of the goals.
Shortcomings of the SDGs
While all 193 member states agreed to this framework, progress is highly uneven among the different member states. This is the natural result of more developed countries having an increased financial capacity to work towards these goals. Since the SDG targets and indicators are universally applied, wealthier countries rank much higher in SDG progress. However, according to the Social Progress Index, the fastest improvers on social progress are among the poorest countries in the world. This indicator reveals many poorer countries are making strides to address the SDGs, but will need to pool resources to attain more consistent improvement across the globe.
In 2020, the annual Sustainable Development Goals Report assessed progress towards achieving the SDGs and revealed alarming conclusions — particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An estimated 71 million people were expected to enter extreme poverty, the first rise in global poverty since 1998. As poverty increases, children in disadvantaged communities are at greater risk for child labour, child marriage, and child trafficking. Researchers estimate that progress towards reducing child labour may be reversed for the first time in 20 years. Underemployment and unemployment have significantly affected the 1.6 billion already vulnerable informal workers — those who work in jobs that are not taxed or monitored by the government — as income levels fell an estimated 60% in the first month of the pandemic.
The SDG Tracker is a tool to show the progress of these goals, yet it faces reliability issues due to significant data gaps. While the available data illustrates the advancement of these goals, they are still far from being achieved by the 2030 deadline due to funding insufficiencies and a lack of determined coordination and cooperation among the global community, including developing and developed countries. As we begin to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, action towards achieving the SDGs needs to be strengthened more than ever. This comprehensive framework already accepted by 193 countries presents the best plan for addressing increasingly pressing issues. South-South Cooperation through the Belt & Road Initiative can create a space for developing countries to enter critical development conversations, rather than just relying on developed nations to lead the initiative. This will increase engagement with and progress towards the SDGs, creating more even participation between developing and developed countries.
What is the Belt and Road Initiative?
The Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) is an expansive infrastructure project undertaken by China in 2013 to reinvigorate the ancient Silk Roads, a trading route that connected the East and West. As a part of this initiative, China is investing a significant portion of its resources into development and infrastructure networks of ports, railways, roads, pipelines, and power plants to foster commercial relationships and improve the infrastructure capabilities of developing countries. This project aims to meet the infrastructure needs of the lower-income countries of the Global South, as they have received limited attention from traditional development actors in the Global North.
Only ten countries formally joined the BRI within the first two years of its launch. According to the Belt and Road Portal, a continuously updating data source on BRI projects and country profiles run by the Chinese government, there are now 71 countries taking part in BRI, making up over a third of the world’s GDP and two-thirds of the world’s population.
The BRI and SSC
The BRI works to institutionalize cooperation among countries in the Global South, known as South-South Cooperation (SSC). This cooperation falls into five core pillars: policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people ties. These five priorities align with the framework of the SDGs by pushing to meet infrastructure needs while highlighting sustainability and capacity building, creating an opportunity for a combined framework.
China has been working to institutionalize cooperation under the BRI by using essential SSC principles such as mutual benefits, win-win cooperation, joint prosperity, solidarity, and sovereign equality among those historically disadvantaged by the Global North-dominated world system. The BRI presents an opportunity to further not only SSC and China’s image as a leading country in SSC, but also the SDGs as it works directly with countries who would benefit from the achievement of the SDGs the most.
Economic Opportunities of BRI
The BRI presents opportunities that could positively affect countries’ economies in the Global South, including China itself, which can help these countries achieve numerous SDGs. This project allows the construction of much-needed infrastructure, specifically in transport and energy, giving countries an enhanced ability to continue developing independently. It also presents the opportunity to open up new markets and increase trade and investment among the Global South, ultimately creating a more economically integrated area that connects the East with the West. BRI will likely be the world’s largest economic corridor — networks of infrastructure in a geographic area meant to attract investment and generate economic activity. This economic corridor intends to reach a population of 4.4 billion with an economic output of $21 trillion. These initiatives directly address SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure and are likely to indirectly address additional goals upon completion.
If completed, BRI projects could reduce travel time in its economic corridors by 12%, increase trade by up to 9.7%, and lift 7.6 million people from extreme poverty. These improvements work towards SDG 1: No Poverty, SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities, and likely others as an effect of these improvements. The BRI creates an opportunity for countries in the Global South to improve their economic positioning and address pressing issues in the world by working together. Overall, BRI provides countries in the Global South with another avenue for achieving their development goals, likely in a way that more directly meets the needs of host countries, as the BRI has made this a key priority.
Risks of the BRI
As a massive infrastructure project, BRI inherently comes with risks such as:
- Financial Instability: debt traps, inflation, fragility of economic systems, rate volatility
- Political Uncertainty: issues with corruption, political instability, uncertainty about a legitimate and constitutional legal/political/regulatory framework
- Lack of maintenance of infrastructure
- Environmental: environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, lack of sustainability
- Social: rising inequality, lack of inclusiveness, inadequate labor conditions, gender-based violence, disregard for indigenous peoples’ culture and land property rights
BRI projects create geopolitical concerns as the mainstream media and professional analysts wonder if the BRI represents a grand strategy by China to create an economic integration that serves their resource needs while not benefitting other countries in the Global South. Many western countries, particularly the US, feel unsettled by the unknowns of China’s rising power and see the BRI as a scheme for China to spread its political and economic influence over a vast area of land. This sense of uncertainty about the BRI’s intentions and future outcomes has discouraged a majority of the West from joining the BRI.
It is true that the BRI positively affects China’s ability to increase trade and access to natural resources, which will be crucial to its continued economic success. Yet, there is also evidence that this increase in trade and investment will benefit other countries in the Global South as China builds much-needed infrastructure. International leaders such as former US Vice President Pence worry that this initiative could be a debt trap where China initiates costly projects that countries won’t pay off. However, there is a lack of evidence of this “debt-trap diplomacy” as it appears Chinese lenders are willing to work with countries to help pay off their debts through debt cancellation and restructuring.
In 2016, Chinese President Xi Jinping committed to a sustainable BRI after introducing “ecological civilisation” to the Communist Party Constitution in 2012. Chinese banks have incorporated this idea as they fund foreign projects and create environmental guidelines for clients. However, there is a lack of transparency on what these guidelines entail and how they will be monitored. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), there is considerable overlap between BRI projects and sensitive environments, resulting in 1,739 Important Bird Areas and Key Biodiversity Areas at risk of harm if environmental safeguards are not closely followed. Additionally, observers are worried that China will export its fossil fuel-based economy to the developing world while increasing its use of renewable energy at home.
With numerous stakeholders involved in the Initiative — from state-run banks to private firms to host nation governments — environmental guidelines and goals will likely fall through the cracks. Additionally, the different jurisdictions involved in these projects have different environmental standards. It will prove critical to mandate a set of standards that will be adhered to by all projects in all countries in alignment with the framework SDGs to prevent the BRI from causing an environmental disaster.
Overlap Between the BRI and the SDGs
The BRI and the SDGs began as separate processes, but the thematic overlap creates an opportunity for coordination and convergence on their agendas. The UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs (UNDESA) spearheads the BRI-SDGs, a project with 14 partners primarily located in the Global South.
This project intends to strengthen international development cooperation under the BRI by training policymakers and technical staff to design coherent and integrated macroeconomic, social and environmental policies that promote the achievement of the SDGs. This project will use an expanded version of the World Economic Forecasting Model (WEFM) to cover more indicators associated with the SDGs as well as the BRI’s five priority areas, as discussed previously. There are two objectives of this project:
- Establish an institutional network among the countries along the BRI for research on the economic, social, and environmental effects of the BRI and on national and cross-country policies to accelerate the progress of the SDGs.
- Promote capacity development and assist interested Governments in translating policy options into programmes at the country level through policy dialogues at national, regional, and global levels.
The BRI-SDGs project is mainly in the research and planning stages and is currently publishing national reports on their partner countries and assessing the impact of COVID-19 on this initiative.
The influence of the SDGs is also becoming increasingly apparent on new BRI projects through a range of policy documents. For example, the Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road commits to sustainable development on two levels. First, through an economic element by focusing on “ecological progress in conducting investment and trade.” And second, through a social component, by improving education, health care, and living conditions of poverty-stricken areas along the BRI. Additionally, China’s G20 Presidency in 2016 adopted the Action Plan to further align G20 work with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This momentum needs to be maintained and strengthened as the BRI has incredible potential to help the 17 SDGs materialize.
A win-win outcome
SDG 17 calls for international cooperation to realize the 2030 Agenda, and the BRI is the framework for this very type of international cooperation for over 70 countries. The natural synergy between the SDGs and the BRI can work together to address the risks of BRI’s large-scale infrastructure projects and the funding insufficiencies of the SDGs to create a more successful outcome for both frameworks. As a multilateral adopted agenda, the SDG policy framework can improve communication on the various BRI projects and align different national development strategies with global goals through formal and informal arrangements between governments and public and private actors. The SDGs can also serve as a framework to provide risk-informed decision-making to contain social and environmental risks of large-scale infrastructure projects.
A lack of sustained funding in the right places is one of the main reasons SDG implementation has been so complex and is currently behind schedule by an estimated 43 years. An estimated $1 trillion is needed to address the infrastructure needs in developing countries. China and the BRI can help with some of these deficiencies through their access to numerous development funds such as the Government’s Silk Road Fund (SRF) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and China’s own experience of lifting 800 million of its citizens out of poverty. The two frameworks could create a collaborative financial architecture to manage all the money sources necessary for such expansive goals.
Incorporating the BRI into the SDG framework can ensure that China remains accountable and is a “responsible stakeholder” in global development cooperation. This is important as China’s own progress on the SDGs is questionable. The 2021 voluntary national review of SDG progress praises China for eradicating poverty, climate action, improving public health, and its strong leadership in international development cooperation. However, according to the SDG index, China ranks 57th in its performance. Ensuring China remains accountable can prevent BRI from just being a way for an increasingly assertive China to spread its influence and create an economic integration that solely benefits them. Partnering with the United Nations will help alleviate the geopolitical tensions of a China-led project as they take on an increasingly active role in the world. This partnership can also ensure that China addresses poverty, inequality, and lack of infrastructure for areas that need it as it claims.
China will benefit from these linkages by being seen as an increasingly important player in the global development arena, which is essential to China as they get closer to not being seen as a developing country. China will also benefit economically through the infrastructure projects that connect them with critical resources for its continued domestic development. This is important because China’s large population and economy mean that their successes and failures regarding development will substantially impact the rest of the international community as China is the world’s top exporter.
How can the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assist?
For BRI to successfully meet its goals and maximize long-term positive development, China and other countries need to work together to adopt policy reforms that would ensure cooperation, accountability, transparency, and financial/environmental sustainability. The BRI is already starting this process by creating SSC conditions among countries in the BRI, allowing them to work together to create these policies. To improve this process, the BRI can partner with UNDP so that the UN System can play a decisive international coordinating role.
The UNDP is mandated to support the implementation of the SDGs and has ample experience in policy formulation, implementation, and monitoring global development initiatives. BRI implementation can be facilitated through the UNDP’s MAPS (Mainstreaming, Acceleration, and Policy Support) approach to help implement the SDGs. This effort involves assisting governments in integrating the SDGs into their national plans, targeting resources to accelerate progress, and providing practical and coherent expertise from various UN entities. This strategy can be beneficial in ensuring the implementation of BRI projects aligns with national priorities and adapts the SDGs to meet these unique circumstances. To keep the BRI accountable to its recipient countries, UNDP can use data to provide observable information for monitoring and evaluation to ensure it meets its stated objectives. The 2030 Agenda’s framework of goals, targets, and indicators can play a role in this monitoring, evaluating, and assessing the effectiveness of BRI on improving the conditions in recipient countries.
Looking Forward
Overall, the BRI presents an excellent opportunity to increase trade and investment among countries in the Global South in a way that may finally allow the ideals of SSC and the SDGs to materialize. The BRI could allow for the widespread economic integration of these countries, creating less dependence on the traditional aid system dominated by the Global North that has yet to improve the financial positions of developing countries substantially. While there are risks involved, this may be the best opportunity yet to improve the positioning of traditionally marginalized countries. BRI and SDG as mutual accelerators have the power to achieve inclusive and sustainable development outcomes that could enhance the lives of billions around the globe.
