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What Does Kenya’s SGR Tell Us About the Future of Chinese Railway Development in the Global South

by Eric Olander

The Chinese-financed Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Kenya is one of the flagship projects of the Belt and Road Initiative. But the SGR like other Chinese-sponsored railway projects elsewhere in the Global South also serves as a prime example of the risks to developing countries in taking on so much debt.

Keren Zhu, a global China post-doctoral researcher at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, together with two other scholars recently completed a first-of-its-kind study that explores the winners and losers in the Kenyan SGR project.

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