Monday, December 12, 2016

China, the DRC, and the Sicomines Project: new from Johanna Malm

Johanna Malm is our foremost analyst of the huge Sicomines project in which China Eximbank agreed to finance an infrastructure package, while a consortium of Chinese companies were to develop a mine, which would repay the infrastructure loans. This project, first conceived about a decade ago, has been very slow to unfold. 

Johanna began doing research on this project in 2008, under her maiden name Johanna Jansson. With her Ph.D. dissertation approved, she has produced a policy brief on her dissertation, published by the Swedish Expert Group for Aid Studies, available here. As Johanna notes, this was not an aid arrangement: 
"The key argument is that Chinese commercial loans do challenge the IMF's power in Africa, at least to the extent that they materialise. The brief starts out with a two-page summary that I have worked hard on to make it accessible to a target group broad enough to include my own aunt as well as American policy makers! Feel free to spread the brief to those who might be interested!"
Johanna's dissertation is available here. She recommends that those interested in her fieldwork and the IMF's role should read chapter 5 (sections 1 and 4) and chapters 6 and 7.