The Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy (ISEP) is launching a policy report on decision-making in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The report – “Belt And Road Decision-Making In China And Recipient Countries: How And To What Extent Does Sustainability Matter?” – is a collaboration between ISEP, the Blavatnik School of Government (BSG), and the ClimateWorks Foundation.

This report explores the processes through which BRI projects originate, develop, and are implemented both in China and in recipient countries. The report aims to provide an overview “power mapping” of the relevant actors and their interests and interactions (both in China and in five recipient countries), with the objective of highlighting where, if anywhere, opportunities for injecting sustainability considerations arise.

“Greening” China’s BRI is necessary to meet global and national sustainability goals. We provide concrete policy suggestions for China and BRI countries that can be grouped in “three Cs”:

 Increase capacity

• Build the capacity of policy banks, SOEs, local companies, and regulators to measure and understand environmental considerations.
• NDRC, MOFCOM, and CBIRC need more staff and expertise to play their overall regulatory functions.
• Improve the capacity of the “project originators” in host countries to develop green infrastructure.

Increase coordination

• Beijing-based central offices and regulators should embrace and support local civil society and media in recipient countries.
• Further coordinate BRI activities within key provinces and link them to national reporting structures.
• The Leading Small Group should declare a policy of designating a central BRI contact team focal point “on the ground” in recipient countries.

Increase control

• Give a substantive role to MEE in project approval for larger projects in environmentally sensitive sectors.
• CBIRC and SASAC should incorporate concrete sustainability benchmarks into their oversight mechanisms for SOEs and policy banks.
• National regulators should perform in-country inspections at random

The full report can be downloaded here.

While citing the report, please use the suggested format:

– Thomas Hale, Chuyu Liu, and Johannes Urpelainen. 2020. Belt and Road Decision-making in China and Recipient Countries: How and To What Extent Does Sustainability Matter? ISEP, BSG, and ClimateWorks Foundation.

ISEP’s other publications can be found here.