Planning Colloquium 2/13/2024: Ammar Malik

Belt & Road Reboot: Beijing’s Bid to De-Risk Its Global Infrastructure Initiative | Ammar Malik, AidData, William & Mary

China’s Belt and Road initiative is among the most audacious infrastructure programs ever. In this talk, Dr. Ammar A. Malik will present evidence that despite reports to the contrary, Beijing remains the world’s single largest official source of international development finance. Marshalling an unparalleled dataset amassed by his organization, Dr. Malik will show that China is future-proofing this flagship initiative.

Dr. Ammar A. Malik, Senior Research Scientist at AidData, leads the Chinese Development Finance Program, which develops pioneering methods to track and analyze underreported financial flows from non-traditional donors to developing countries. Before joining AidData, Dr. Malik was Director of Research at Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at the Harvard Kennedy School and Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute in Washington DC. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from George Mason University, MA in Public Affairs from Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) Paris, MA in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and BSc in Economics and Mathematics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences.