Evaluating the CPEC from Sustainability Perspective

Keeping in view the global debate on megaprojects sustainability, the focus of the current study was to propose and test a parsimonious research model by incorporating the structural interrelationships of sustainable development issues of Pakistan with economic, social and environmental dimensions of mega projects of CPEC as a means to sustainable development in Pakistan. By using purposive sampling technique on a sample of 267 diverse stakeholders of CPEC in Pakistan, online survey-based data collection were made. To fit the model to the data, PLS-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique was used. The results of this study revealed that concern about sustainable issues of Pakistan explains significantly the variance in economic followed by environmental and social dimensions of CPEC. The current study further found that environmental, economic and social dimensions of CPEC jointly explains the variance in sustainable development of Pakistan. Finally, the current study found that environmental, social, and economic dimensions of CPEC partially mediate the relationship between concern for sustainable issues and sustainable development of Pakistan. These results implied that megaprojects should not be based on geopolitics or ‘iron law of megaprojects’ in terms of survival of the un-fittest, with the un-fittest projects going built up, instead of the best. Further, the results implied that megaprojects like CPEC should be diverted from G-7 based Universalist market-efficiency assumption to new institutions, such as the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank based view of economics mainly driven by sustainable policies in diverse indigenous settings like Pakistan. Theoretical contributions, limitations, and directions for future research have also been discussed.