Paper short abstract:

This paper explores institutional challenges for greening China’s Belt and Road Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa’s energy sector.

Paper long abstract:

Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in September 2013, energy infrastructure projects are central elements of this ambitious multilateral development initiative. Also, the Chinese government has proposed a green BRI that would facilitate green energy transition among the BRI countries. Such political vision requires significant institutional changes of current Chinese financial-industrial complex in promoting its overseas energy sector that previously focused on large hydropower and fossil fuel infrastructure. Meanwhile, as most SSA countries face multiple challenges in transiting to a modern and sustainable energy system, institutional reforms in the energy sectors are also underway. How will these two sets of institutional changes affect the opportunities and challenges for greening the Chinese BRI in SSA’s energy sector? Using Ethiopia and South Africa’s wind energy projects as a comparative case study, we examine the direct and indirect interactions of two sets of institutional changes through the lens of activities of Chinese enterprises in the host countries. We argue that these Chinese project activities are not only manifestation of these institutional encounters but also the changing agents for continuous policy processes from both ends, particularly around areas of energy sector reforms, the deployment of renewable energy, and enhancement of rural electrification, and energy trading platforms in SSA. Our study reveals that the initiative of a greener BRI would tremendously benefit SSA countries on these fronts, however, more coordinated efforts between Chinese and African public and private partners along with the on-going domestic institutional reforms is the key to its success.