The Belt and Road from a Global Perspective

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a project that has heavy emphasis on basic infrastructure and is sponsored by the government of the People’s Republic of China. It deeply impacts Africa’s economy in terms of its transport infrastructure investments. Railways, ports, and transnational infrastructure have been made not only as tools for economic integration and trade expansion between countries but also as ways of including people in development processes. Out of many BRI promises, one of them entails the potential to uplift peripheral areas, with the hope of giving these areas that have traditionally been expensive capitals and government investors a chance. Though the claims surrounding this initiative are robust, an interview with current practitioners on the ground brings to the fore a problematic concern: precisely to what extent have the rural poor across the wealthiest subregions of Africa, the continent’s least fortunate and most underserved populations, benefited to any significant degree from these infrastructure projects? An exploration of a central contradiction about the BRI: inevitably, it involves the fact that through BRI infrastructure, regions are connected to a better, easier trade system. However, sociopolitical benefits fully tend to be in the hands of the ruling elite, foreign contractors, and the urban centers. However, the majority of those citizens who most need economic injection will stand aside from either the decision-making process or be cut off from partaking in the ongoing benefits. Therefore, projects that should reverse existing disparities might actually maintain or even worsen the old problems. The research topic spans three transport works under the BRI in Africa, which are Tanzania Zambia Railway (TAZARA), Addis Ababa Djibouti Railway, and the Port of Djibouti, with the aim of assessing any poverty alleviation carried directly by these works among marginalized demographics. This paper collects data on project outcomes in more neutral and local indicators, such as job creation, market access, skills development, and recovery of tourist attractions. Pro-poor tourism literature as well as the theory of development are being discussed, and the point is made that the investment size is not the key to solving everything that will end all poverty. Instead, it is about the careful consideration behind each and every project’s design and execution as to whether it addresses the systemic poverty that has existed for a long period of time. Participatory planning, transparent governance, and common ownership of capacity building and community, as the last part of policy offerings, are the suggestions provided. These will determine if BRI infrastructure can be turned from a bilateral, top-down pattern of integration and interaction to a real field of multidimensional and accountable development in Africa.