Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - On Sunday, the leaders of the Group of Seven vowed to generate $600 billion in public and private fund...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - On Sunday, the leaders of the Group of Seven vowed to generate $600 billion in public and private funding over the course of five years to finance the development of infrastructure in developing nations and to compete with China's more established, multitrillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative.
At the G7 summit, which was held this year at Schloss Elmau in southern Germany, U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders inaugurated the newly called "Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment."
In order to support projects in low- and middle-income countries that work to combat climate change as well as advance global health, gender equity, and digital infrastructure, Biden promised that the United States would mobilise $200 billion in grants, federal funds, and private investment over the course of five years.
"To be crystal clear: This is not assistance or charitable giving. According to Biden, it is an investment that will pay off for everyone and will enable other nations to "understand the actual benefits of cooperating with democracies."
According to Biden, multilateral development banks, organisations that support development, sovereign wealth funds, and other sources might contribute hundreds of billions of dollars more.
In order to develop a viable alternative to China's Belt and Road Effort programme, which Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced in 2013, Europe will raise 300 billion euros for the initiative over the same period, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
Along with discussing their plans, some of which had already been made public separately, the leaders of Italy, Canada, and Japan also spoke. Although they were not there, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, and Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, are also taking part.
China's investment plan includes projects and initiatives in more than 100 nations with the goal of modernising the historic Silk Road trade route connecting Asia with Europe.
Officials from the White House claimed that few developing nations have actually benefited significantly from the initiative.
The $2 billion solar development project in Angola, supported by the Commerce Department, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the American company AfricaGlobal Schaffer, and the American project developer Sun Africa, was one of the flagship initiatives that Biden highlighted.
Washington will also give Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal $3.3 million in technical support as it constructs an industrial-scale modular multi-vaccine production facility there that can eventually produce COVID-19 and other vaccines, a project that also involves G7 states and the EU.
Additionally, the World Bank's global Childcare Incentive Fund will receive a contribution from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) of up to $50 million over a five-year period.
The investment commitments, according to Friederike Roder, vice president of the nonprofit organisation Global Citizen, might "be a promising start" toward more engagement by G7 countries in developing countries and could support stronger global growth for all.
Less than half of the 0.7 percent pledged by the G7 countries, or 0.32 percent, of their average gross domestic product goes toward development assistance, according to her.
But she added that there wouldn't be a sustained global economic revival without poor nations.
