Harmonized standards can make Belt and Road a driver to attain SDGs

It is nearly four years since all 193 members of the United Nations approved the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In that time there has been an unprecedented global mobilization of human and financial resources to protect the environmental sustainability of our planet and create a peaceful and prosperous world for future generations, a world in which poverty is eliminated and "no one is left behind".

The Belt and Road Initiative, with its goal of win-win and inclusive development, is already supporting the economic and social development of countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. It has started enhancing infrastructure connectivity, policy coordination, unimpeded trade flows and financial integration, while fostering people-to-people exchanges in BRI partner countries. However, as the number of participating countries steadily increases, the BRI has the potential to do even more. It could provide a tremendous boost to global economic, environmental and social sustainability, the three key pillars of the 2030 Agenda.

What needs to be done to help ensure that this happens? Global experience in financing development indicates that the key to more closely aligning the BRI with the SDGs will be to develop and consistently apply to all BRI projects a set of harmonized environmental, social and economic standards that apply at all stages of project implementation.