A Clarification of its Key Features, Objectives and Impacts

This report describes the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is a transcontinental infrastructure plan conceptualized in China and implemented in more than 100 partner countries, primarily emerging economies. The BRI primarily promotes the building of physical infrastructure that will connect the partner countries globally.

Despite its needs-based approach, the BRI has been widely criticized for creating undesirable effects, such as increasing partner countries' economic dependence on China through debt-trap lending. The authors of this report identify and explain what makes the BRI different from traditional development finance initiatives and provide a framework to assess the critiques. They also discuss the available evidence on the BRI's effects and describe the implications for policymakers who are trying to determine how to assess and leverage the BRI.