Chinese Government provides $25 million grant for Road Improvement in Pohnpei State

On January 13, 2021, the 21st Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia put forth a resolution (C.R. No. 21-233) allocating $25,000,000 in grant funding -- previously committed by the Chinese Government on an unknown date - to the Pohnpei State for road improvements. The resolution was introduced by Senator Peter M. Christian and adopted on January 22, 2021 by Wesley S. Simina, Speaker of the FSM Congress. The total amount of the grant funding given to Micronesia is unknown. The specific road improvement project(s) to be financed are also unknown. Finally, it is unknown if the funds were committed via one grant from the Chinese government, or via multiple grants with discretionary elements.

Additional details

1. It is unknown if the project that captures the original commitment of the funds is already captured in AidData's dataset. It is likely from the same fund mentioned in project ID #90074, as they are both Chinese grant funding to be used for road improvements by Pohnpei State and brought forth by senator Peter M. Christian, a year apart. However, information relating to the original source of funds, including its total amount, is unknown. This issue warrants further investigation. 2. This project may be funded via one or several Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreements (ETCA). This is for several reasons. First, the resolution itself references "grants" (plural) from the Chinese government that are being pulled from. Second, grants that are unallocated or partially allocated when committed, but later allocated to specific infrastructure projects, are a common financing mechanism associated with ETCAs. Third, there are several ETCAs that were signed by FSM and China for which no evidence about their subsequent allocation exists. However, there is no direct evidence linking this project to a particular ETCA. This issue warrants further investigation. 3. There is a risk that the grant captured in this project is being double counted if the original grant from the Chinese government is both (1) in the TUFF dataset and (2) not coded as an umbrella project. However, the chance that the funds referenced were granted via an ETCA (which AidData codes as umbrella projects) is fairly high. Further, if this projects was not funded via an ETCA or similar umbrella grant, AidData cannot identify a project in the TUFF database that is a uniquely likely candidate for the provision of the original funds: a non-ETCA grant which is related to infrastructure construction/sufficiently general to include infrastructure construction, but which is also unallocated to a specific project and/or allocated to a Pohnpei State or infrastructure project that never took place. Project ID#69215 and ID#67602 are the only two projects that meet these criteria, and the former is a grant of only 250,000 USD from 2005, while the later is very likely an ETCA. As such, there is a sufficiently low chance that these grant funds are being double counted that this project can be recommended for aggregates.

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