Photo: iStock
28/06/2025 06:00
Development is an enduring theme of human society and a crucial measure of progress in the modern era. For some time, the gap between the Global South and North has been widening, with challenges such as food security and energy security continuously emerging. Some countries have politicized and marginalized development issues, politicized economic and trade matters in the name of security, and promoted “decoupling, disrupting industrial and supply chains, setting up fences and barriers,” and extreme sanctions under the pretext of “de-risking”, creating division and confrontation. As a result, global development has encountered severe challenges.
At the crossroads of international development, in September 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping solemnly proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) during the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, sending out a strong call of The Times to focus on development and revitalize cooperation. This proposal is a “re-mobilization” of global development cooperation, a “reaffirmation” of the core human rights principle of people-centered development, offering a “roadmap” to narrow the North-South gap and address the imbalance in development. It also provides an “accelerator” for advancing the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The core of the GDI is the commitment to development as a priority, to a people-centered approach, to the principle of benefits for all, to innovation-driven development, to harmony between humanity and nature, and to results-oriented actions. These “six commitments” address critical issues and challenges in global development governance, putting forward a common goal for global development governance.
By prioritizing development, the initiative seeks to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Development is the hard truth and a fundamental approach to improving people’s well-being and advancing social progress. The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is the greatest consensus of the international community for advancing global development and a necessary pathway to overcoming crises such as energy, food, and climate challenges. Under the current international situation, the GDI offers a clear answer to the questions of how consensus can be reached among as many countries as possible, how global resources can be mobilized for development and how global action for development can be well coordinated. That is, the United Nations’ coordination role must be given full play, development must be placed at the forefront of global macro-policy frameworks, synergy of multilateral development cooperation must be promoted, and policy coordination among major economies must be strengthened to ensure continuity, stability, and sustainability. Having identified the essence of the issues, the GDI places development at the core of international cooperation, opposes the politicization and marginalization of development issues, focuses on key areas of interest to developing countries, calls for greater efforts to improve people’s livelihoods, and offers new possibilities and feasible pathways for achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Committed to a people-entered approach, the GDI takes the aspirations of peoples from all countries for a better life as its goal. “The people are the foundation of a country, and the state is governed for the people.” The peoples of all nations must be mobilized to participate in global development, and the benefits of development must be shared by the majority of the peoples. Global development can never rely solely on a few capitalists or political elites and neither should development outcomes be monopolized by a small number of individuals. The GDI adheres to a people-centered approach, taking the improvement of people’s well-being and the well-rounded development of individuals as both its starting point and ultimate goal. It emphasizes that development is for the people, and by the people, and its outcome should be shared by the people. It aims to continuously improve people’s livelihoods and boost their sense of happiness, gain and security. The people-centered approach is pivotal to what China has achieved in its development. China has focused efforts on the people’s immediate concerns such as employment and health, winning the battle against poverty, and creating a new miracle in humanity’s fight against poverty. Among the eight priority areas the GDI promotes, poverty reduction is placed at the forefront, and issues such as food security that are closely related to the people’s well-being are also included. This highlights China’s deep concern for the well-being of the people, and conforms to the shared aspirations of people worldwide for a better life.
Committed to the principle of benefits for all, the GDI tries to ensure that all countries can fairly enjoy the benefits of global development. On humanity’s path to pursuing happiness, not a single country or ethnic group should be left behind. All countries and nations in the world should have equal opportunities and rights to development. One-sidely pursuing a winner-takes-all approach will only lead to a total loss. Being obsessed with building “fences and barriers” will only imprison oneself and divide the world. The GDI strives to address development challenges and create more development opportunities, actively enhancing the fairness, effectiveness, and inclusiveness of global development, with the goal of ensuring that not a single country or individual is left behind. China firmly adheres to the correct direction of economic globalization, advocates for increased investment in global development cooperation, calls for the G20 to implement the initiative to support the industrialization of Africa and the least developed countries, and urges developed countries to honor their official development assistance commitments to help developing countries enhance their self-reliant development capabilities, so as to jointly expand and equitably share the “cake” of economic globalization, and drive economic globalization toward a more open, inclusive, univerally beneficial, and balanced direction. In doing so, the GDI aims to help the peoples of all countries embark on the broad road of modernization together.
Committed to innovation-driven development, China collaborates with the international community to achieve leapfrog development. Innovation is the primary driving force behind progress. The new wave of technological revolution is thriving, with emerging new business forms and models of the digital economy and green economy, bringing fresh momentum and opportunities for economic recovery. The GDI calls for seizing the historic opportunity presented by the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, enhancing cooperation in fields like big data, 5G, and artificial intelligence, exploring new drivers for post-pandemic economic recovery, accelerating global development, and promoting leapfrog development for developing countries. It is particularly crucial to uphold an innovation-driven approach while creating an open, fair, just, and non-discriminatory environment for technological development. Some technologically advanced developed countries perceive the scientific and technological progress of other countries as a threat, resorting to measures such as sanctions, blockades, suppression, and “decoupling,” all of which contradict trends of history. Countries should deepen exchanges and cooperation on innovation, foster greater integration of science and technology with economy, strengthen the sharing of innovation outcomes, and strive to break down the barriers to the flow of innovation elements such as knowledge, technology, and talents, allowing innovation to flow freely.
Committed to harmony between humanity and nature, the GDI aims to accelerate the global green economic transformation. Properly managing the relationship between humanity and nature is a major challenge faced by countries around the world. Most Western countries have experienced severe environmental crises during their industrialization processes. Today, humanity faces dire challenges in survival and development, ranging from global warming and extreme weather conditions to worsening desertification and biodiversity loss. The GDI advocates proactively addressing climate change, respecting, revering and protecting nature, and striving to establish a healthy ecological environment as the foundation for sustainable global economic and social development. China actively participates in South-South cooperation to tackle climate change, collaborating with countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Seychelles to create low-carbon demonstration zones. Through the provision of low-carbon materials, joint formulating plans for these demonstration zones, and capacity-building efforts, China is promoting local green, low-carbon, and sustainable development in a way combining material and intellectual support. The wind power plant in Zhanatas developed by China in cooperation with Kazakhstan, once being connected to the grid and put into operation, will generate 350 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity annually, directly alleviating the power shortage in southern Kazakhstan and meeting the electricity needs of over one million households in the region. China’s efforts in promoting green development have written a win-win chapter with countries worldwide, demonstrating the responsible role and commitment of a major country, and injecting strong momentum into the global response to climate change.
Committed to results-oriented actions, the GDI aims to transform development visions into concrete projects and pragmatic measures. International development cannot be advanced through mere discussion; it requires action. The GDI starts from ensuring and improving people’s livelihood, follows a practical cooperation guideline, and grasps the pulse and urgent needs of global development. By tackling the most pressing issues in global development, the GDI emphasizes eight key areas of cooperation, providing a valuable platform for aligning development needs and facilitating project collaboration. Since the launch of the GDI, China has proposed 32 major initiatives for its implementation at the High-Level Dialogue on Global Development in June 2022. In August 2023, China announced a special fund of US $10 billion at the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS Plus Dialogue to specifically support the implementation of the initiative. Through a series of practical actions, China is actively executing the GDI, injecting positive energy into global sustainable development.
Over the past three years and more, under the personal guidance of President Xi Jinping and the collaborative efforts of all parties, the GDI has developed from a proposal by China into an international consensus, evolving from a cooperative concept to joint actions. The cooperation under the initiative has continuously deepened and solidified, and has received wide acclaim and active participation from the international community. The GDI has effectively consolidated international consensus on promoting development, actively mobilized greater input of resources from the international community, and established cooperation platforms in eight key areas, significantly steering the efforts to achieving sustainable development goals back on track.
Expanding the “circle of friends” of the initiative. The GDI has firmly seized the key factor of global development, garnering widespread attention and active responses from the international community while effectively consolidating the consensus on global development cooperation. Since the launch of the initiative more than three years ago, it has received support from more than 100 countries and international organizations, with over 80 countries joining “the Group of Friends of the GDI”, more than 70 countries and international organizations becoming part of the Global Development Promotion Center network, and over 70 countries, international institutions, and financial organizations signing cooperation agreements with China to implement the initiative. China has actively promoted the in-depth alignment of the GDI with the major development strategies of relevant countries and regions, leading to the preliminary formation of an extensive cooperation network. These developments fully reflect the political consensus and urgent expectations of the international community, particularly the developing countries, to reset development issues to the core of the international agenda, generating strong momentum to address development challenges.
Increasing input of resources in development issues. To advance the comprehensive implementation of the GDI, China has integrated and upgraded the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund into the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, with its funding amounting to US $4 billion. It has invested and mobilized nearly US $20 billion of various development funds. A multi-stakeholder funding platform is taking shape, with the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, the China-UN Peace and Development Fund, non-governmental foundations such as the Gates Foundation, and other multilateral financial institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank actively supporting project financing.
Deepening pragmatic cooperation under the initiative. The Global Development Project Pool and Capital Pool have been innovatively established, attracting participation from official and social stakeholders through cooperative funding, targeted donations, and beneficiary contributions. Under the framework of the GDI, more than 1,100 projects have been launched. The Global Development Project Pool has implemented over 600 projects, including promoting the Blue Talent Plan with countries in the Indian Ocean region and collaborating with international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to implement projects in areas such as green development and climate change in India Ocean countries. Ranging from technical cooperation to capacity building, from poverty reduction education to the digital economy, and from high-yield rice cultivation to Chinese Juncao processing, the cooperative efforts under the initiative are increasingly deepening and becoming more practical, bringing benefits to the “Global South” and helping them onto the fast track of development.
Promoting the institutional development of the initiative. China has actively created more global development governance platforms. It holds the High-Level Dialogue on Global Development, the Ministerial Meetings of the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative”, and the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development. It has established the Global Development Promotion Center a China Global Development Knowledge Network, more than 30 cooperation platforms in the eight key areas, and a Global South Research Center, effectively driving innovative development of global development systems. Moreover, the United Nations has established a Global Development Initiative Task Force, which will strongly promote enhanced coordination among UN development agencies and collaborate with the “the Group of Friends of GDI,” further aligning the initiative with the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The China-Africa (Ethiopia)-United Nations (UNIDO) Center of Excellence has officially been established. This center is a trilateral demonstration project jointly implemented by China, African countries, and UN agencies under the framework of the GDI.
Strengthening development capacity building. China attaches great importance to achieving shared development. It has taken the lead in formulating and implementing country-specific plans for the 2030 Agenda, and has published multiple progress reports, selflessly sharing China’s ideas, solutions, and wisdom with the world. China has organized over 2,000 capacity-building projects for developing countries, training more than 60,000 professionals in various fields. China has released the “Global Development Report”, facilitating international knowledge exchange on development, supporting countries in exploring development paths suited to their national conditions, and enriching and improving the global knowledge bank on human development. In September 2024, at the Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, President Xi Jinping announced ten key partnership actions for modernization to deepen China-Africa cooperation for the next three years. The first is the the Partnership Action for Mutual Learning among Civilizations, which aimed at creating a platform for exchanging governance experience, establishing a China-Africa Development Knowledge Network, and inviting 1,000 African political figures to China for dialogue.
Bearing in mind the well-being of the world, with a focus on benefiting others with its own achievement in development, the GDI effectively unites the international community’s efforts to promote the building of a global community of development with a shared future, and to foster a development pattern that features universal benefits, balance, coordination, inclusiveness, win-win cooperation and common prosperity. China will always contribute to global development, providing wisdom and strength for addressing global development challenges and advancing global development into a new era.