A Comparative Analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative with Other Global and Regional Infrastructure Initiatives: Prospects and Challenges

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the first and currently the most expansive global infrastructure initiative, notably for its scale and emphasis on connectivity. In response, alternative initiatives such as the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) and Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP), including their components the Blue Dot Network (BDN) and Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (PQI), as well as Global Gateway (GG) and the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), have emerged to counterbalance the BRI’s influence and promote more transparent, sustainable, and rules-based infrastructure frameworks. This review investigates how global and regional infrastructure initiatives—namely PGII/BDN, GG, FOIP/PQI, and 3SI—compare with the BRI in terms of development objectives, implementation models, institutional structures, and implications for developing economies. Adopting an inductive approach, this review identifies key themes from the literature to evaluate these initiatives across seven dimensions: (1) infrastructure objectives, (2) the quality and transparency of investments, (3) investment policy orientation, (4) trade policy orientation, (5) inclusivity and regional integration, (6) coordination mechanisms, and (7) environmental sustainability. While PGII/BDN, GG, FOIP/PQI, and 3SI appear well-positioned to address some of BRI’s shortcomings, the evidence does not clearly favour one model over another in terms of achieving welfare-enhancing outcomes and bridging development gaps. Nonetheless, strategic competition and complementarities among the connectivity policies of multiple initiatives can ultimately contribute to more accountable, multidimensionally sustainable, and socially inclusive infrastructure development. We also illustrate how stated preference methods, i.e., willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA), can be used to quantify the value of soft infrastructure, particularly public preferences for sustainable investment and norm diffusion, which are central to evaluating the social welfare gains from participating in these initiatives.