SOAS receives an Economics and Social Research Council grant to research Chinese hydropower dams
5 November 2012
Dr Frauke Urban, from the Centre for Development, Environment and Policy, has been awarded an Economics and Social Research Council grant to conduct the first comparative analysis of Chinese hydropower dam projects in low and middle income countries.
Rapid economic growth in China has created a series of pressures, such as the depletion of scarce domestic resources. This has meant that China is now engaging more closely with a number of low and middle income countries in Asia and Africa.
This project will explore the environmental, social, economic and political impacts of China’s engagement in Cambodia, Ghana, Malaysia and Nigeria through fieldwork and document and data analysis.
Access to overseas natural resources, new markets and technological advances, have made China the world’s largest player in large hydropower dam projects, usually backed by state finance and state-owned enterprises.
‘To conduct the first comparative analysis of the impacts of Chinese hydropower dam projects in low and middle income countries will inform hydropower corporations in the UK and China and help shape emerging national and international policy responses.’
‘It is an important research project that will have significant impacts on our understanding of China as a Rising Power and its implications in low and middle income countries, particularly from an environmental perspective,’ said Dr Urban.
Dr Urban will be leading a team of 16 experienced researchers from the Open University, University of Nottingham Ningbo in China, the University of Ghana, Cambodia’s Development Resource Institute CDRI, the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, Nottingham University in Malaysia, Tsinghua University in Beijing and International Rivers.
The research project will run for three years and has a total value of £725,000 (reference ES/J01320X/1).
For more information contact:
Dr Frauke Urban, Lecturer in Environment and Development f.urban@soas.ac.uk
