Talk of the Town
Ever since its announcement by President Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly in Sept 2021, China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI) has left the impression of being a politically prioritized but nebulous project. It appears to cover every key aspect of the global developmental agenda and yet offers very few clues as to how China plans to address them through the GDI.
Last week, Beijing lifted the curtain a little higher for the outside world to see what exactly is in the GDI box. At the High-level Dialogue on Global Development held as part of this year’s BRICS Summit, Xi made renewed commitments to strengthen the GDI. Earlier in the same week, the Center for International Knowledge on Development (CIKD) presented the first iteration of the Global Development Report, which contains a whole chapter on the “Philosophy, Principles, Pathways and Progress” of the GDI. CIKD was established in 2015 following Xi’s speech at the UN Development Summit and is affiliated with the State Council.
Based on Xi’s new announcements and the CIKD report, the GDI acts like a “booster shot” to the UN SDG process from China, rather than a standalone initiative of its own.
“The GDI seeks synergy with existing mechanisms,” the report declares, “[it] is intended neither to replace existing the international development agenda nor to dilute the 2030 Agenda or cherry-pick the SDGs. It is intended to renew focus on development issues, to re-commit to the SDGs, to revitalize global partnership, and to reactivate international development cooperation.”
Such a philosophy is probably best reflected in the GDI’s financing arrangements. Rather than creating a centrally administered fund or budget for the initiative itself, China seems to be taking the approach of injecting money into a multitude of development financing vehicles. At the High-level Dialogue, Xi announced that China will add another USD 1 billion to its South-South Cooperation Fund and upgrade it to a “Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund.” The Fund, with the original size of 2 billion USD, was set up in 2015 at the UN Development Summit and was already given an extra 1 billion upon the inauguration of GDI last year. Xi’s pledge last week makes it a 4 billion USD pool of development assistance.
The report outlines that since 2021, China has also launched Phase III of the FAO-China South South Cooperation Trust Fund with a total amount of USD 50 million. Moreover, It has contributed to the replenishments of the International Development Association (IDA), the Asian Development Fund (ADF), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The China-initiated UN Peace and Development Trust Fund, a Sub-Fund of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, also approved new projects in green transition, digital technology, and capacity building.
While the GDI is very much built around the UN SDGs (the BRI is also increasingly so in its public framing) and “does not cherry pick”, the initiative does have its own strategic priorities. In the short term, it is geared towards “pressing development challenges such as poverty reduction, food security, and COVID-19 response and vaccines” in order to “create a favorable environment for post-COVID recovery.” After the pandemic, medium and long-term developmental challenges will also enter its focus, including sustainable financing, climate change, new industrialization and digital infrastructure.
Xi’s speech indicates that the GDI may become a bit more institutionalized than before, with a Global Development Promotion Center in the making. But it appears to be only a hub of knowledge sharing and networking, a bit like an upgraded CIKD. CIDCA, China’s international development agency, will likely play a key role as the administrator of the South-South Cooperation Fund. But more multilateral platforms also need to be set up from scratch. A “Friends of the GDI” group was established early this year that has already attracted over 50 countries, the report says. A few issue-specific centers in China, such as the International Poverty Reduction Center and the China-Pacific Island Countries Climate Action Cooperation Center will likely handle project implementation under different policy areas.
The GDI is taking shape at a critical moment in global geopolitics and economic relations. “The pandemic is negating years of developmental gains,” while “some countries are politicizing and marginalizing the developmental agenda by building up walls and slapping crippling sanctions on others,” Xi warned. In this context, will China’s booster of the UN SDGs be able to make an impact?
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