G7 leaders adopt B3W partnership to counter China's BRI

US President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven (G7) leaders on Saturday launched the 'Build Back Better World' (B3W) partnership for meeting the infrastructure needs of low and middle-income countries as parts of efforts to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

According to a fact sheet by the White House, Biden met with G7 leaders to discuss strategic competition with China and commit to concrete actions to help meet the tremendous infrastructure need in low- and middle-income countries.

The B3W partnership is a bold new global infrastructure initiative and a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership led by major democracies to help narrow the over USD 40 trillion infrastructure need in the developing world, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, said the White House.

Through B3W, the G7 and other like-minded partners will coordinate in mobilising private-sector capital in four areas of focus--climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality--with catalytic investments from our respective development finance institutions.

The scope of the initiative ranges from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa to the Indo-Pacific.

According to the White House, in announcing the partnership, the US and its G7 partners are expressing a unified vision for global infrastructure development. The US will seek to mobilize the full potential of our development finance tools, including the Development Finance Corporation, USAID, EXIM, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the US Trade and Development Agency, and complementary bodies such as the Transaction Advisory Fund.

The Biden administration also aims to complete domestic infrastructure investments in the American Jobs Plan and create new opportunities to demonstrate US competitiveness abroad and create jobs at home.

"In addition to the billions of dollars which the United States mobilizes in overseas infrastructure financing through existing bilateral and multilateral tools, we will work with Congress to augment our development finance toolkit with the hope that, together with the private sector, other US stakeholders, and G7 partners, B3W will collectively catalyze hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries in the coming years," the White House said.

The US has committed to offering countries a positive vision and a sustainable, transparent source of financing to meet their infrastructure needs.

In its fact sheet, the White House said that the infrastructure that is developed in partnership with those whom it benefits will last longer and generate more development impact.

Further details are awaited in the G7 Leaders' Communique.

( With inputs from ANI )

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