Recent moves towards 'participatory' budgeting have raised hopes and expectations that spending and revenue generation can be made more pro-poor if informed citizens and their non-traditional political organizations participate directly in budgeting decisions. This article reviews experiences of...

China’s development aid to Africa has increased rapidly, yet this might be the only fact on which we have widespread agreement when it comes to Chinese aid. Analysts disagree about the nature of China’s official development aid, the countries that are its main recipients, the reasons for...

As China is poised to become the world’s largest creditor, concerns about debt sustainability have grown. Yet considerable confusion exists over what is likely to happen when a government runs into trouble repaying its Chinese loans. In this working paper, we draw on data from the China Africa...

This paper analyses China’s growing foreignaid and export credit programme as anelement of the changing international aidarchitecture. The paper finds that practicesgoverning Chinese aid and developmentfinance diverge from clear OECD standardsand norms on transparency and definitions,the...

China’s special economic zones helped the country industrialize by attracting foreign investment. In 2006, Beijing initiated an overseas trade and cooperation zone program, assisting Chinese companies to invest abroad while also building China’s soft power through the transfer of a key...