China aid to Africa totals $75b in one decade – Report

China’s official aid to Africa reached $75 billion within a decade between 2000 and 2011, a new study has identified based on reported figures gathered from the media.

According to a dataset in a joint aid paper published April 29, 2013, Chinese-backed or financed projects in 50 African countries between the said year period were 1,673.

The new estimates came from a database compiled by AidData, a partnership between the College of William and Mary, Brigham Young University, and Development Gateway – and a joint paper, China’s Development Finance to Africa: A Media-Based Approach to Data Collection. The joint paper was released this week by the Center for Global Development (CGD).

According to the CGD, of the 1,673 official projects in 50 African countries, 1,422 have reached the “commitment, implementation, or completion stage”.

The new AidData-CGD study counts as “official finance” two types of assistance. They are Official Development Assistance (ODA) which includes concessional finance, mainly grants and loans, provided by official Chinese sources and aimed at the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries.

The second is Other Official Finance (OOF) which is other bilateral transactions from Chinese government entities (excluding investments and military aid).

The study found out that China’s ODA and OOF combined was “roughly equal” to that of the United States from 2000 to 2011, varying from a low of about $2 billion per year at the start of the period to a peak of about $17 billion in 2006.

By Ekow Quandzie