GDP Center Hosts Debt Swap Research Launch
On February 3, 2021, the Global Development Policy (GDP) Center, an affiliated regional center at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, hosted a webinar discussion and interactive demonstration of its latest research on opportunities for debt-for-climate and debt-for-nature swaps with China. The webinar included Kevin Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy and Director of the GDP Center, Senior Researcher Rebecca Ray, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Blake Alexander Simmons, as well as Professor Carlos Larrea of Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador, and Shuang Liu of the World Resources Institute.
The featured GDP Center research assessed which countries would be suitable for debt-for-climate and/or debt-for-nature swaps with China based on significant exposure to both Chinese debt and threats to climate/biodiversity. Based on this assessment, the GDP Center was able to create a global outlook for opportunities, “showing where the greatest opportunities for debt-for-climate and debt-for-nature swaps with China are around the world – including Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Uganda and the Solomon Islands,” according to Simmons.
Following the presentation of main findings, Simmons demonstrated how to use the interactive to create maps and scatterplots with the data from the GDP Center analysis, see the variation in these characteristics between countries, and how the relationships between different variables may be useful for prioritizing countries for green debt relief strategies, like debt swaps.
A recording of the webinar can be viewed below. For more on the GDP Center’s latest research, visit their website.
The event was also the subject of a Daily Free Press article, which can be read online.
The GDP Center is a university-wide research center affiliated with the Pardee School of Global Studies. The GDP Center’s mission is to advance policy-oriented research for financial stability, human well-being, and environmental sustainability. Visit the GDP Center’s website for more.