Introduction

How effective are international development partnerships (IDPs) in supporting developing economies? What factors help or hinder such relationships? How do asymmetrical partnerships between partners of significantly unequal size and capacity work for the weaker partner? In what ways and to what degree do political, economic and strategic inter-state relations impact upon IDPs? How do low and middle-income countries navigate their way through competing state interests and ambitions coursing through global, regional, and sub-regional political economies?

There is intense debate around fundamental development issues evident in these questions, centred on the potential for relationships of power, control and influence to infuse such cooperation. These issues are magnified by the challenge to development cooperation and to progress on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) posed by intensifying major power competition. SDG 17 is about “Building Partnerships for Sustainable Development”. The following analysis examines these questions and issues by investigating sustainable development partnerships in supporting national development in developing economies and contributing to the SDGs. The study focuses on the development partnerships of Lao DPR (Laos) with China and the China-sponsored Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In Southeast Asia, 2024 forms a timely focus for analysis: ASEAN Chairmanship held by Laos; the decade-long Vienna Action Plan for Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) ends; the “ASEAN-China Year of People-to-People Exchanges” is launched (Asian News By Media-Outreach 2024).

There is an extensive scholarly and policy literature debating and evaluating IDPs. A sample of this literature includes Vestergaard et.al., 2021; Bucher 2020; Fransman and Newman 2019; Shin, Kim and Sohn 2017; Schaaf 2015; Mert and Chan 2012. The literature shows that, in the history of the idea and implementation of such partnerships, a gap between intensions and practice has led to period arguments to reinvigorate the mechanism with new approaches that are more inclusive, ‘bottom up’ partnerships that are more effective. The 2005 Paris Declaration, 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, and Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation and resulting Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) are all indicative of the debate. In this vein, an interesting study is a 2017 analysis that showed that different implementing partnerships lead to different project outcomes: “an increased number of non-state actor participants leads to a better project outcome; this positive participatory effect, however, diminishes as the number of governmental implementers increases” (Shin et.al. 2017).

The point is significant in terms of debate around China’s ‘top-down’ approach to development partnerships and that of the BRI. The material on the utility or otherwise of the BRI as an effective mechanism to promote the SDGs is even more substantial, with a vast number of publications. Again, a flavour of these and the debate between advocates and critics can be found in some indicative works such as: BRF 2017; Cao 2016; Chaturvedi et.al 2021; Gu 2023, 2015a, 2015b; Gu, Corbett and Leach 2019; Hamdan, et.al. 2023; Kim 2019; Lewis et.al. 2021; Ling Jin 2018; Meneses 2023; Purushothaman 2020; Renwick, Gu and Gong 2018. SCIO 2023a; Seele et al. 2019; da Silva and Modéer 2019; United Nations 2023, 2022a, b; United Nations in Lao PDR 2017; 2015; Zreik 2023. On balance, the broad consensus in the literature is that the BRI is contributing to the SDGs, but that greater synchronisation is needed and important differences such as issues of civil and human rights, community involvement, financing, and environmental risk management need to be negotiated between the two programmes.

There are immense challenges for all developing countries (Adhikari 2018), a widening annual investment deficit estimated at approximately US$4tr per year from US$2.5tr in 2015, global FDI fell by 12% in 2022 to US$1.3tr (UNCTAD 2023). There are, however, “unique” trade and economic challenges faced by landlocked countries (LLDCs) such as Laos (Purkovic 2014)), recognised, for instance, in the Vienna Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2014–2024 (UN 2023) and in the work of the ‘Group of LLDCs’ and the Group of Friends of LLDCs, relaunched in November 2022, in which China is a member.

The United Nations’ (UN) estimates that LLDCs record 20% lower development levels than if they were not landlocked; rely on a limited number of commodities and minerals upon which they are export dependent, incurring twice the transit costs on non-landlocked countries; and are characterised by a large informal sector, weak social capacities, high unemployment and low productivity. Furthermore, LLDC exports are highly concentrated in a limited number of products (UN 2024).Taking the investment gap, the inward FDI profile shows the precariousness of these states in their structural weaknesses, influenced by global turbulence and the adverse impact of major power driven crises. At the start of the SDGs in 2015, LLDCs recorded US$25,973 mn FDI, cut by half in 2020 as COVID-19 struck, and striving to recover to 2021 only to be debilitated by multiple crises in 2022 as their collective FDI crashed to US$19,698 mn (UNCTAD 2023) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Source: UNCTAD 2023

Global FDI to LLCs. 1990–2023.

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Such statistics underline the impediments facing such countries. The geographical location, hemmed in by other countries and lack of direct maritime contiguity bring logistical issues of trade, geopolitics, and security. Such external geo-spatial realities are, in instances such as Laos, reinforced by an interior landscape of mountainous terrain and plateau and dependency on river systems such as that of the Mekong and the potential for problems for fishing, irrigation and household incomes and well-being. However, for Laos at least, its landlocked circumstance has meant that its political leaders have become adept at negotiating a Lao pathway through often contending neighbourhood interests, with China, its huge neighbour, an ever-present and consideration (McBeth 2018; Sims 2021).

It is critical to understand the ‘idea’ of a “Laos space” lies at the very core of Laos’s historical and socio-cultural “creation” and at the heart of its contemporary political and ideational identity (Ivarsson 2008). The resilience embodied in this “space” is now evident in the country’s sustainable development and ‘partnerships’ strategies to turn spatial problems into an opportunity to become a vibrant, successful ‘land-linked’ trade, investment, and energy hub. The study, therefore, assesses Laos’s economic condition, development trajectory and SDG status. It evaluates the state of play in its development partnerships with China and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its wider development diplomacy. It does so contextualised by debilitating dynamics of intensifying ‘major power’ competition, tension and Cold War discourse and foreign policy practice, including rising Southeast Asian defence budgets. (IISS 2023). The regional penetration of global competition digs deeply into the soul of Southeast Asia’s seeming consensus, yet in practice discordant and fractured fissures beneath the surface of its political economy.

Laos is a particularly interesting country by which to examine development partnership (Bouté and Vatthana 2017). Laos holds a high-profile place in Asian and global political, economic, and strategic development as Chair in 2024; Laos’s chosen theme for 2024 is “ASEAN: Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience” (GoL 2023). Tenure of the ASEAN Chair offers a major regional platform to promote its own agenda across ASEAN’s political, economic, and strategic policy domains. It also provides deep insight into the practicalities of life of a LLC in Southeast Asia, one deeply embedded in its relationship with China and the Belt and Road Initiative it advocates and actively promotes.

Behind its raised diplomatic role in 2024, Laos faces significant economic challenges. The economy is beset by food and fuel inflation and shortages, devaluing currency, foreign exchange reserves at a critical low. The Government has been rescheduling its repayments schedule to service its high level of external debt, principally to China its largest creditor, negotiating repayment suspensions and mortgaging its natural resources to stave off defaulting (Economist 2022), relying on Chinese repayment restructuring to manage its ‘debt distress’. The Lao Government’s limited resources and structural economic issues are critical issues. This study’s empirical evidence indicates deepening concern that the global major power competition impacts adversely on indebtedness and mechanisms of debt rescheduling in emerging economies.Footnote 1 China’s rise has seen it build close economic development and trade relations with ASEAN and Southeast Asia, including financial relations (Xue Gong 2020; Fu 2018). Yet, China is subject to Western “pushback” as a multi-domain challenge to Western interests. This is a complex contextual environment for the Lao Government to navigate through 2024, and beyond, whilst pursuing its own development partnerships.

This study investigates the ways Laos’s development partnerships are contributing positively or not to meeting its needs in the complex dynamics of the global and regional relationships of 2024? The analysis, grounded in political economy and based on extensive primary, empirical research in addition to secondary evidence, explores this question in the context of intensifying major power competition in the global economy, generating powerful corrosive forces for successful transformative change in developing economies.

Building partnerships for development, particularly in the post-COVID-19 period, remains the most effective means for developing countries to harness the resources and skills required to effect sustained and sustainable economic growth, social development and contribute to achieving the SDGs.Footnote 2 The research evidence is that this is certainly a position held across China’s government, business, policy think tanks and academies: “President Xi has stated many times that China supports international cooperation for sustainable development. This is central to China’s Global Development Initiative, South South Cooperation and building a global community of shared future”. However, the potential of such partnerships can be limited by a lack of diversification and a consequential over-reliance on a few partners in some developing countries. This is more likely to be acute in structurally unequal between the parties. In the case of Laos, China-BRI forms a critical mass in economic development. Domestic market opening reforms, the Lao-China relationship and the BRI helped the Lao Government drive increases in annual GDP growth and fund social development improvements.

This study argues that, in addressing this challenge of ‘opening up’, combatting its economic plight and negotiating its relationship with China, the Lao Government needs to draw deeply on its long diplomatic experience and skills to walk a fine line, nuancing the ‘ties that bind’ with China, with a need to broaden and strengthen its international development partnerships. Here, achieving a critical mass of sub-regional development cooperation should be the priority. There is substantial potential to build upon existing sub-regional partnerships in the Mekong Group (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand; Viet Nam) and ‘Friends of the Mekong Group’, including observers to the Group India, the UK and ASEAN Secretariat. U.S. and Japanese initiatives in the Mekong sub-region are also changing the topography of development partnerships that also encompass Laos, including the renewed U.S. engagement investing in the “flagship” Mekong-U.S. Partnership (MUSP) (US Government 2021a, b). Partnership diversification offers immense opportunities to widen Laos’s policy options. Yet, this is far from being straightforward. Laos’s diplomacy has to navigate the sub-regional interests of the other Mekong Group countries, notably perhaps the rising interests of Viet Nam, and their own relationships with China. The power relationships in the Laos-Viet Nam-China triangle necessitate requires careful diplomacy. Viet Nam’s trade and investment with China reached a record high in 2023 as major power courtship saw China’s President Xi follow the 2022 visit of US President Biden as Viet Nam moves to establish itself as a regional and sub-regional leader. Laos is a formal ally of Viet Nam and, with eyes set on China’s regional presence. Viet Nam is strengthening its developmental and political partnership with Laos and the other Mekong, sub-regional countries whilst growing significantly its trade and political relationship with China.

Laos has strong resilience, and potential for sustainable economic growth and can make further advances in the post-pandemic era the country remains one of the poorest in the world with a critical socio-economic challenge to be overcome (GoL 2018; ESCAP 2023). International development partnership is an important mechanism for the country successfully tackling these challenges and meeting its objectives of transformational change and it is important for the Lao Government to realize its development partnership strategy. This includes promoting e-commerce and creating a digital economy. SDG 9 is to “Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”. Laos has joined the swelling ranks of developing countries seeking to harness innovative technologies to jump to the next generation economy connecting local and global markets, empowering national development in its digitalisation strategy 2021 to 2040 (GoL 2021a, b, c, d).

For some analysts, China is remaking the global economy, not least in the development system (Jenkins 2018). The BRI and China are primary ‘partnerships’, contributing substantively and substantially to Laos’ post-independence development. The support for Laos from China is substantial, targeted primarily on transport, energy infrastructure capacity-building and connectivity. This draws upon China’s shared experience as a developing country. China and the BRI will continue to play a pivotal role in supporting Laos’ development strategies.

This process has been backed by substantial funding. Grants, low-interest and commercial loans have underpinned China’s funding assistance to Laos, as in other Asian and African developing countries. China’s worldwide outward foreign direct investment (FDI) grew rapidly from 2008, peaking at US$196,149 mn in 2016. Since 2020 China’s FDI has declined from US$153,710 mn in 2020 to US$146,503 mn in 2022 (UNCTAD 2023). China’s global ‘foreign aid’ rose from US$631 mn in 2003 to US$3bn in 2015. Foreign aid expenditures decreased sharply to US$2.3bn in 2016, but rose again to US$3.18bn in 2021 (SAIS-CARI 2023) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Source: CARI 2023. http://www.sais-cari.org/data-chinese-global-foreign-aid

China’s Global Foreign Aid Expenditure 2003–2021.

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China’s approach to international development assistance remains distinct from Western understanding and practices (Gu 2023, 2015a, b; Gu, Li and Zhang 2021). The BRI is growing in importance for China’s investment, with the proportion of China’s engagement comprised of investment reaching a record level of 61% in Q1 and Q2 2023 (Wang 2023). Similarly, BRI trade accounted for 29.7% of China’s total trade in 2021, a 25% increase from 2019, and trade with the major BRI partners doubling between 2015 and 2022, and this is projected to continue in future years (Textor 2023).

China’s total cumulative investment in the BRI has been estimated at US$1.053tr in the BRI’s first decade (2013–2023), with about US$634 mn in construction contracts, and US$419 mn in non-financial investments. In 2023. There were around 212 deals worth US$92.4bn, compared to US$74.5bn in 2022, a rise of 18%. Whilst African BRI countries were the main recipients of this engagement in 2023, East Asian BRI countries, meanwhile, expanded its intake of Chinese investments by 94% to US$6.8 bn in 2023 (Wang 2023). At the Third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in October 2023, President Xi Jinping announced further funding for the BRI, consisting of US$48bn in loans from China’s China Development Bank and EXIM Bank and an injection of US11bn from the Silk Road Fund (Xinhua 2023a, b, c, d, e, f) designated for high-quality, small and smart projects. Significantly for Laos, mining and construction dominated Chinese involvement, with Chinese private firms taking the lead whilst SOEs led on construction. The report highlights potential future development areas for BRI investments: “manufacturing in new technologies (e.g., batteries), renewable energy, trade-enabling infrastructure (including pipelines, roads), ICT (e.g., data centres), resource-backed deals (e.g., mining, oil, gas), high visibility or strategic projects (e.g., railway)”. These are all areas to which Laos’ development strategy and its China/BRI partnerships are synchronized.

This paper argues that there is a structural unevenness in Laos’s approach to partnership network development, given the gravitational pull of China and the BRI. The BRI and China contribute positively to Laos’ economic development, but issues around Laos’s infrastructure connectivity and external debt could be mitigated, at least partially, through the stronger diversification in cooperation partnerships intrinsic to its development strategy and development diplomacy. The Lao Government already has a range of partnerships, but some are relatively small, episodic or in their earliest stages. There are potential benefits in broadening and deepening these, thereby widening policy options for sourcing funding, technical expertise and knowledge-sharing. The emerging process of sub-regional cooperation and deepening collaboration through ASEAN can be strengthened by extending such partnerships. Laos’s ASEAN Chairmanship offers it the rare opportunity to take a regional and wider international lead to advance ASEAN as a whole, as well as contribute positively to its own national needs.

International development diplomacy and cooperation are subject to severe turbulence in the global political economy, as major power competition and confrontation and elements of economic nationalism influence the global States’ system. As development cooperation comes under these pressures, it is becoming even more explicitly securitised than has been the case in recent decades; ODA disbursements, project investments and connectivity are viewed increasingly through the lens of strategic interest, national economic and technological security as the wider global strategic competition plays out between the major powers in a changing ‘world order’. As one research scholar with long experience of Southeast Asia and development goals interviewed for this present study, explained: “On the one hand, it looks quite straightforward, states are competing for power and influence and to be ‘top dog’. Development is simply one part of this, and the connectedness of today’s globalised system and Southeast Asia has become even more important in this. On the other hand, there are still strong pressures for international cooperation on development and these are helping to mitigate some of the problems caused by that competition.”Footnote 3

But, to what extent and how can the country’s objectives be achieved, given the resource deficits that characterise the country’s own political economy? Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone noted in October 2023, Laos as a low-development, landlocked state without sea access, is limited by convenient transportation, trade investment and attracting funds to drive economic and social development, especially in the development of infrastructure that requires substantial budgets” (Sun 2023).

The study adopts a political economy perspective. Development partnerships and the wider regional and global development governance are far from altruistically pure. They are laced with often hard-won agreements, disagreements, bargaining and trade-offs and compromises. The global political economy, and those of regions including Southeast Asia, are framed by the interconnected structures of finance and money, knowledge, wealth, and security; reified ideational values such as the contested conception of ‘development’ itself; and risks, for example, sovereign indebtedness and inflationary pressures on the business and foreign investment climate (Strange 1983: 213–219).

All of which involve the component of power, defined as “… the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one prefers, and that can be accomplished by coercion, payment, or attraction and persuasion” (Nye 2017; 2004). Power is multi-faceted, both conceptually and in practice, and suffuses the structures, processes and agencies inhabiting the various domains that comprise development relationships. There are, consequently, ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the outcomes generated by these processes. This conceptual point is highly relevant to the present study. The Chinese Government’s White Papers, official statements, speeches, and policies challenge this conception as grounded upon exclusionary Western values. Rather they have long stressed as an alternative, that China’s development partnerships are “win–win” (BRF 2017).

Laos’s economic development

Laos is an LLDC with a low density, young population of 7.42 m in 2023 mainly located in the capital city Vientiane and its environs and along the Mekong River. The population is projected to reach 8.1 m by 2030. One third of people are aged between 10 and 24 years old, one of the youngest country age profiles in South-East Asia. However, a youthful population profile also presents educational, skills training, health and employment and multi-ethnic equity challenges, not least in terms of funding, facilities, equipment, training the trainers, and overcoming both the spatial rural–urban divide, whilst avoiding the risk of a new rural–urban digital divide. Yet, there is strong economic and social potential for a ‘generation dividend’ in a projected larger ratio of working age population to older and younger people. To realise this potential requires large-scale, investment, as well as infrastructural and human resources capacity-building such as digital economy employment training and skills. For example, in terms of realising a youth dividend, the 2022 Lao DPR National Human Development Report is very clear in its cautionary assessment that: that “If key strategies are not carefully formulated and adopted as quickly and effectively as possible, the opportunity to improve all livelihoods in the country may be lost” (GoL and UNDP 2022: 6).

The significant GDP annual growth rate year-on-year out increases in the immediate pre-pandemic years marked it out as one of the world’s fastest-growing ‘emerging economies’ (tradingeconomics, 2023). Pre-pandemic GDP growth supported increased household incomes and social welfare and protection, including significant reductions in absolute poverty. Laos was classified as a Lower Middle-Income Country (LMIC) in 2011, based on gross national income (GNI) per capita, and the Lao Government committed to moving to Upper MIC (UMIC) status (GoL 2020). Socio-economic progress was stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic (UNLCT 2020a). National planning from 2019/2020 through to 2025 include partnering to drive forward the country’s recovery and strengthen its capacity to achieve the SDGs (UNLCT 2020b).

The Laos Government was an active participant in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2000–2015. The country saw poverty, malnourishment, and child mortality rates reduced by half, whilst primary education saw almost complete enrolment rates. However, there was substantial additional work to be done when the SDGs were introduced (The United Nations in Lao PDR 2015, 2017; Open Development, 2019). With the broader remit aims and objectives of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda (SDA), the increased challenge of progressing further was embraced fully by the Laos Government and NGOs, with early, active IDPs with the UNDP and ESCAP, ASEAN and European Union (EU). Asian Development Bank (ADB). Consequently, the Laos Government’s development of the key policy strategy document, the 8th National Socio-Economic Development Plan (NSEDP) 2016–2020, reified the SDGs into its very fabric. The Government in Vientiane stated that some 60% of the NSEDP were specifically dedicated to the SDGs (GoL 2018). These Plans are the implementation mechanisms for the longer-term development policy, the still-ongoing 10-Year Socio-Economic Development Strategy (2016–2025). An issue continues in funding the vast work and administrative programme (GoL, 2021a). In addition to the 17 SDGs, the Lao Government added an 18th, “safe living from the unexploded ordinance”, reflecting the continued threat to adults and children.

Laos is one of the world’s lowest income countries in terms of both national GDP and GDP per capita. The economy is heavily dependent on the agricultural sector, accounting for 33% of GDP, the second-largest earner of foreign currency, and on tourism, contributing a further 11%. GDP per capita has increased over the decades, dipping only slightly in 2020 and 2021, to recover its upwards trend to reach US$2599.21 in 2022 (trading economics 2023). Trade has largely been with neighbouring countries, especially in the closed economy of the past half-century or so. Exports today are principally raw materials, agricultural products and minerals, with Thailand (32%) and China (31%) the principal destinations. Despite experiencing the pandemic effect in 2020 and 2021, there are, prima facie, potential green shoots with estimates such as that of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) among other agencies real GDP annual growth of 3.1% in 2023 (EIU 2022). Laos’s economic growth is projected to accelerate to an average of 4.2% in the medium term, led by the services sector and exports (World Bank 2023), the assessment noting increased tourism, increased export demand, continued foreign investment and, notably for this present study, increased connectivity. The Monitor’s projection came with a caveat; “structural weaknesses will limit growth” a combination of currency fluctuation, high imports and substantial debt repayments driving continued double-digit inflation, high cost of living, slow the pace of household income rises and slowing poverty reduction. As Fig. 3 illustrates, direct investment into Laos grew from US$756 mn to US$1,072 mn in 2021. However, 2022 saw this plunge to US$528 mn as domestic and global pressures combined (UNCTAD 2023) (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
figure 3

Source: UNCTAD 2023

Laos DPR Inward Foreign Direct Investment US$ millions, 1990–2023.

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Laos has substantial, continuing developmental challenges and the Government’s digital development programme is intended to meet and overcome these, working with the various tiers of government administration and Party across the country, business, and community leaders. The headline problems are those of low economic and human development metrics: ranked 132nd globally in nominal GDP and 140th of 191 countries in the Human Development Index at 0.607 points in 2021; 15th in Ease of Doing Business and in addition; low in the Global Competitiveness Report (Schwab 2019). The Laos Government is heavily reliant upon Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to fund its infrastructure projects; the external debt is “critical” with External Debt accounting for 68. of the country's Nominal GDP in 2022, compared with the ratio of 56% in 2020 and 54% in 2021 (CEIS 2023); inflation was running at 25.24% in November 2023; food insecurity intensifying with prices spiking by 53% in May 2023 before falling back to 26.4% by the November. Despite the decades-long downward trend, poverty and inequalities remain substantial socio-economic challenges for the country.

In response to its development challenges, the Lao Government partners with a range of development programmes and groups, beyond ASEAN and China/ BRI, with which it could engage further. MGC is a sub-regional initiative launched in 2000. It has six member states, India, Cambodia, Myanmar, Viet Nam and Laos. India was the key sponsor. The aim is to strengthen cooperation focused on connectivity, tourism, and culture. Laos has benefitted from its relationship with India through the MGC for infrastructure and agricultural. However, the MGC partnership has, as yet unrealised potential. A step towards strengthening it were four agreements signed by the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Laos (ICCL) with the Lao Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) and with the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM). The potential for further strengthening is, however, also contextualised by India-China relations, a “contested relationship” (Gu 2021). A shift by Laos towards closer development partnership with India, however multilateralised, could prove awkward in its relationship with China, as it seeks to balance the respective interests and relationship dynamics.

Regarding MUSP, the Biden Administration has upgraded the Obama era ‘pivot’ to the Asia–Pacific, ASEAN and to Mekong cooperation. President Biden hosted ASEAN state leaders at the White House in May 2022. The relationship with ASEAN was raised to the status of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership at the 2022 U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh. The Biden-Harris Administration’s 2024 budget requested US$1.2bn in economic, development, and security assistance for Southeast Asian states, adding to US$90 mn for engagement with ASEAN and efforts to strengthen ASEAN institutions (U.S. Government, 2022). December 2022 saw the opening of the U.S.-ASEAN Centre in Washington (U.S. Government 2023). The U.S. is renewing its core national interest in the Asia–Pacific region across all policy domains, to counter what it views as the rapidly extending Chinese power and influence. The aim of the MUSP is “to create integrated cooperation among the five Lower Mekong countries” (U.S. Government 2021b). MUSP has four priority programmes: develop standards for quality infrastructure; Mekong Water Data; health; energy and infrastructure. In 2021, Laos was already involved in an electric vehicles pilot project. The Biden Administration states that, by 2021 the United States government had provided US$4.3bn in foreign assistance to the sub-region since 2009 (U.S. Government, 2021a). The Biden Administration emphasises “America is back. We're determined to engage with the world” (U.S. Government 2021c); a ‘democratic deficit’ in China’s approach to the Mekong, concentrating on top-down bilateralism despite its avowedly ‘people-to-people’ approach, whilst the U.S’s approach involves the local people in ‘bottom-up’ deliberation and implementation processes; and the importance of underpinning ‘values’, intended to sharply delineate those of the U.S. and “likeminded partners”, from those of China.

The ‘Putin option’ also has some potential. Laos has a long history of close relations with Russia reaching back to the Soviet era and there is renewed partnership potential (Zaytsev 2021). When the USSR collapsed in 1991, trade and relations faded. But, in 2003, Russia cancelled 70% of Laos’s debt and set preferential repayment conditions for the balance outstanding of US$378 mn with a schedule of 33 years. Russia has provided military armaments, airport construction, military base, humanitarian aid, and Covid-19 vaccines. Facing Western sanctions, Russia has renewed its approach to ASEAN. Whilst forging closer China-Russia political relations, evident with Vladimir Putin’s address to the Third BRI Forum. With lower-cost oil supplies an imperative for Laos, oil diplomacy with Russia is an important consideration.

Development cooperation with China/ BRI

Laos has centuries-old relations with China, its largest geographical neighbour, with trade and migration central features as a ‘Lao space’ was created and established the foundations for a Lao state. The latest iteration of the Lao State dates from 1975 and the victory of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP). Although bilateral State-to-State and Party-to-Party relations fluctuated over the decades according to doctrinal and policy shifts within and between both Parties, recent decades have seen closer cooperation and Chinese trade, investment, infrastructural and technical assistance grow, supplemented by the major BRI projects. There was an upgrade of Laos in China’s foreign relations during 2022 and 2023, with the status of the relationship established as a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership carrying additional Chinese commitments of support. It is also the country to which Laos is most heavily in debt, raising debate about Chinese “debt diplomacy” and “land-for-capital” arrangements to stave off defaulting on debt repayments to Chinese policy and commercial banks.

Chinese enterprises are actively embedded in the Laos economy, critical rail, road, hydropower, mining, and export zone projects have been completed. According to the interview evidence underpinning this study, there is broad Chinese development community consensus that China’s assistance and the BRI are making a positive contribution to Laos through major infrastructure projects, to the wider development of Asia and to the global SDGs. This is a view supported by empirical evidence from the field, for example Chinese CEOs and entrepreneurs interviewed for this study. One CEO of a Chinese business operating in Africa and Southeast Asia stated that: “Chinese firms, like our own, have been involved in many projects in Africa and Asia for many years now. Our companies give support in lots of ways. We help Laos with arranging finance and give our experience of managing projects. Chinese business understands the markets very well and we can see the best way to work together with local partners to bring the product to customers around the world through our company networks. This is win–win. The country gets better facilities and revenue, our business gets stronger and customers get the products they want.”Footnote 4 A Chinese entrepreneur with businesses in Southeast Asia shared this view, but added that “Many developing countries need good quality infrastructure and want to make high quality products. The Belt and Road Initiative is very important as it is building the transport links that businesses need to increase trade in ASEAN markets and it aims at high quality connections and better quality goods with higher value. The new railway like the one with Laos is a good opportunity for businesses like mine because governments and businesses in the region and the Belt and Road are bringing all the markets in the region together.”Footnote 5

Whilst these views agree that the IDP contributions of the BRI and China to developing countries are positive, some issues have been raised by other interviewees about the actual experiences of Chinese firms on the ground in these countries. In an fieldwork interview, leading scholar of Chinese business explained the problems that Chinese business have reported: “The problems China’s firms have working in other developing economies, many on BRI projects, are not the same everywhere, it depends on the economy. They really don’t like to say much on this publically. The information I have from Chinese businesses is that they often have to work with poor quality administration and corruption. The companies expect to have to train local workers, but a particular frustration is retaining these workers after they have been trained at company expense as they leave for other firms. CEOs have spoken of unreliable supplies and low standard materials and different work cultures. Some businesses talk about a shortage of workers who have the Chinese language.”Footnote 6 In the case of Laos, however, the Ease of Working status is improving and there is a dialogue process between the Laos Government and Chinese businesses, Corruption Index ranking is rising, and employer-led Chinese language training has been introduced, such as the LCR.

The evidence gathered indicates, therefore, a strong view that BRI development projects need to have robust risk assessments and tighter project monitoring and that high quality, greener projects need to be prioritised. High debt level is regarded as a manageable issue, if practical restructuring plans are in place and achievable by countries such as Laos.Footnote 7 This points to an important finding for IDPs more generally, the need for rigorous project planning and design, due diligence and monitoring by firms, policy and commercial banks and development funds that underpin an IDP.

According to the Lao Government, Chinese investment in Laos totalled more than US$16bn in July 2022. China’s cumulative investment amounted to approximately about US$16.4bn in 833 projects, with a wide range of investment areas of Chinese including small, medium, and large enterprises, state-owned enterprises, and private companies. A major share of the investment has been directed towards flagship infrastructure projects. There are extensive, regular dialogue meetings between the respective government officials and leaders, Party representatives and in ‘people-to-people’ relationships. In addition, there is a well-established dialogue process between the Lao Government and Chinese businesses operating in Laos. November 2023 saw the 7th exchange meeting between the Lao Government and Chinese enterprises held in Vientiane. Over 100 participants participated, discussing questions and answers on the issues.

Chinese enterprises face in investing and operating in Laos (Xinhua 2023a). China’s ‘rise’ to become the second-largest world economy offering inspiration to other developing countries. This is certainly the case with respect to digitalisation and particularly e-commerce and rural revitalisation. Alibaba’s online e-commerce platform is credited with creating a new economic stimulus through transformation of villages into ‘Taobao’ smart villages: “The fast expansion of Taobao villages has become a China phenomenon, which also inspires other countries to seek unconventional development solutions by leveraging digital technology” (AliResearch 2021).

However, the intensifying major power competition influences the context for development cooperation. This contest influences the context of Laos’s partnership cooperation with China and the BRI (Zhai and Johnson 2020; RFA, 2022). Against this backdrop, the utility of the BRI in supporting the SDGs is recognised by the UN, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stating that: “… the world will benefit from a Belt and Road Initiative that accelerates efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. … The five pillars of the Belt and Road – policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people exchanges – are intrinsically linked to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. … the relevance of the Belt and Road Initiative is undeniable…” (UN 2023; SCIO 2023a, b; GoL 2022). A 2022 joint UN/China BRI-SDG Progress Report focused on BRI transport infrastructure and connectivity (UN 2022b) and, in 2019, the World Bank examined Transport Corridors. The findings of this latter study were that “… if fully implemented, BRI infrastructure projects could increase trade between countries along the routes by 2.8% and GDP by 3.4%. It will lead to a 1.7% increase in global trade and a 2.9% increase in global GDP; by 2030, BRI-related investment could lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million out of moderate poverty” (World Bank 2023).

Contextualised by this global institutional support for BRI-SDG cooperation, the second Belt and Road Forum for Laos-China Cooperation was held in early December 2023 in Vientiane, a meeting between CPC and LPRP officials to coordinate and refine the 2024–2028 action plan agreed in the previous October by Xi Jinping and Thongloun Sisoulith in their roles as Party, as well as State, leaders. The aim of the Forum was to discuss ways of upgrading the Laos-BRI relationship to generate high quality outcomes (Xinhua 2023e). Laos’s development cooperation with China and with the BRI involves large-scale infrastructure projects, funded by a range of bilateral non-repayable grants, low-interest loans, concessional loans, and concessional buyer’s credit, as well as recently, Chinese private enterprises. Projects over the past two decades include telecommunications infrastructure; construction of hospitals, the Lao National Cultural Centre; Nam Ngum hydropower station, Vangvieng cement factory, and satellite television receiving ground station; building of a drug rehabilitation centre; and the National Sport Centre.

But this partnership has also seen an increasing number of “bottom-up”, ‘people-to-people’ relationships emerge. This multi-dimensional cooperation partnership synchronises with the SDGs (United Nations 2024). Contributing to Laos’ endeavours towards SDGs 2, 3 and 4, in November 2023 China provided funding under its Global Development Initiative and South-South Cooperation Fund to the World Food Programme to purchase 930 tons of rice and 120 tons of canned fish to be used for the lunches of 130,000 school children in 1,400 primary schools Laos' eight provinces (Xinhua 2023a, b, c, d, e, f). In addition to hospital construction and hospital-to-hospital cooperation contributing to SDG3 noted above, the Lao-China Railway has transformed the opportunities for humanitarian health collaboration. China’s ‘Love Heart Journey’ offered a “lifeline” to Lao children with congenital heart disease. The “Journey”, provided free medical treatment at Kunming’s Yunnan Fuwai Cardiovascular Hospital. In November 2023, five children, ranging from eight months to 12 years old, along with their parents, travelled on the Laos-China Railway to Kunming under the programme supported by the BRI (Visapra 2023).

Perhaps a less anticipated social benefit of the Lao-China Railway has been the opportunity it has afforded to promote youth health awareness to the increased numbers of people passing through Vientiane Station. As we have noted already, Laos has a youthful population, but there are a well-documented range of health challenges faced by the Laotian peoples as a whole, but particularly by this young cohort, including mental health issues (Laotian Times 2023b). The importance of the BRI-supported Laos-China Railway as a new social hub opportunity to raise awareness was quickly recognised, and acted upon by young Laotians, with the support of the Lao Government, the UN and strong endorsement by the LCR management (Laotian Times 2023a, b).

Recent SDG 4 initiatives include a China-funded teacher training course in November 2023, attended by 1,000 teachers and school administrators. A further 2,000 teachers and school administrators would be able to attend a training course in China (Xinhua 2023a, b, c, d, e, f); despatch of 26 medical teams for hospital-to-hospital (“people-to-people”) skills and knowledge-sharing in a programme running since September 2022 (Xinhua 2023c, 2023d). Chinese enterprises in Laos are also engaged in cooperative projects such as the education fund established by Asia-Potash International in December 2022, providing an initial US$700,000 to the Lao Government in October 2023 to support educators in impoverished regions, financially disadvantaged students in educational institutions, and the cultivation of skilled professionals (Xinhua 2023e). “Bottom-up” educational partnership plays a significant and practical part in the Laos-China people-to-people partnership, with a number involving use of the Laos-China Railway as a clear, new centre of developmental gravity. For instance, in May–June 2023, 100 “top performing” Laotian primary school children visited elementary schools and the prestigious Xinhua University in China’s to celebrate International Children's Day (Visapra 2023). With the increasing number of Chinese firms across Laos, the number of Laotians studying the Chinese language is rising rapidly in Vientiane and the northern provinces with many new Chinese-language schools opening, some run by Laotians who had returned to Laos after studying in China. Chinese universities, such as Soochow University establishing campuses in Laos (RFA 2021). Huawei’s global initiative, the Seeds for the Future programme, was extended to Laos in November 2016; annually, the programme invites ten university students from a country for an ICT study visit to Huawei headquarters in China.

These examples of P2P illustrate the social positives that can derive from IDPs. They are significant in terms of the claimed ‘gap’ between IDP intention and practice and need for “bottom-up” non-state initiatives in creating stronger IDPs. These examples demonstrate “bottom-up” cooperation is helping to close any such ‘gap’ strengthening the IDP with China. However, in terms of the questions raised at the outset of this study, there remain salient considerations of ‘unequal’ power and dependency. According to one National University of Laos student, “Laos and China are close friends and partners now. Most companies and investors doing business in Laos are Chinese. To get a job you have to speak Chinese. That’s just the way things are. If you speak only English, where and with whom are you going to get a job?” (RFA 2021).

For Laos, the “golden key” is the Laos-China Economic Corridor (LCEC) Cooperation Framework (2019–2030), agreed with China in April 2019. It runs under the BRI, intersecting with the North–South Economic Corridor (NSEC) to build intra- and inter-regional and global connectivity. At the core is the Laos-China Railway, opened on 3rd December 2021, with cross-border service Vientiane to Kunming beginning in April 2023.The LCEC’s aim is to promote development across a comprehensive remit focused on transport, agriculture, energy, industry, mining, tourism, environment, poverty reduction, skills and science and technology, as well as ICT and information technology (SCIO 2023b). The Mission slogan of the LCEC is “One Belt, Three Cores and Three Zones”, all contiguous with the new railway “economic belt”; the “three cores” referring to strategic urban centres of Mohan-Boten Cross-border Economic Zone, Luang Prabang, and Vientiane; and the “two zones” are the trade logistics and tourism zone in the north, and the central Laos Yunnan Province industrial zone.

Encouraging Chinese firms and investors to establish industry parks, many adjacent to BRI corridors, is a well-established feature of China’s commercial and ODA strategies (Gu 2019). There are twelve Special Economic Zones in Laos (Fig. 4). According to a Laopattana report issues at the start of January 2024, 178 firms had invested over US$520 mn in Laos’s SEZs, with a registered capital of more than US$178 mn, with revenues of approximately US$7 mn for the Lao Government and providing jobs for 3,644 workers, of whom 72 are foreign workers (The Star 2024). Lao official statistics record 51 companies registering to invest in the SEZs across the country in the six months to December 2023, with a total reported capital of US$54.7 mn. Of these, 29 are from China, the largest foreign investor in the SEZs over the half-year period (The Nation 2023).

Fig. 4
figure 4

Source: Government of Laos PDR 2024. SEZs in Laos DDR. https://investlaos.gov.la/where-to-invest/special-economic-zone-sez/

Laos Special Economic Zones.

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The Laos-China railway link has led to new export opportunities, for example the export of bananas. The first special “banana train” left Vientiane for China on 5th December 2023, carrying 25 cold-chain containers loaded with 500 tons of fresh Lao bananas. Beijing’s Preferential Tariff Programme removed tariffs from 8,256 Laos goods on 1st December 2022, including bananas. The market opportunity provided by China and the BRI partnership here is potentially beneficial and “win win”. However, local agricultural and rubber firms report border access differential treatment from that of the incomer Chinese producers, many arriving since the advent of the railway, when trying to get into China to sell their goods. Complaints to the Lao Government focus on different treatment at the Chinese border between the many Chinese incomers who land-lease to sell to China, with rubber producers unable to gain entry directly and having to sell to Chinese firms at lower prices. Ostensibly, the issue is about Chinese high import standards and low quality of Lao produce for entry to China, a point accepted by the Lao National Chamber of Industry and Commerce (LNCCI), but noting the development support needed to raise quality, arguing that “Our producers still lack modern technology”. However, a Lao Government official makes a sharper stance on informal barriers: “They set a high standard and won’t accept Lao products so easily even with the zero-percent tariff policy. They can claim that our products are not good enough or not clean enough, effectively making all kinds of trade barriers” (RFA 2020). This micro-case illustrates a few key points in the BRI process: a potential for the BRI to spur higher standards and quality in partner economies; the role of non-tariff barriers; the potential for local community producer discontent and potential loss of social cohesion.

Laos’s E-Commerce and Digital Economy and China

SDG 9 is all about promoting innovation by building robust infrastructure, creating an industrial base and process that has long-term sustainability. The choice to focus on this sector reflects the Lao Government’s prioritisation as an opportunity to ‘leapfrog’ the limitations of the 3rd industrial revolution; highlights the potential to strengthen transition from being a “land-locked” economy to a “land-linked” country; illustrates potential benefits of Laos’s IDP with China. China’s digital economy became the largest in the world in 2022, replacing the U.S., and is projected to remain so through to at least 2026 (FT-Omdia 2022). China’s digital economy totalled approximately US$7.25tr in 2022, around 41.5% of the GDP (Cyberspace Administration of China 2022).

China’s successful e-commerce push and overall approach to digitalisation has been promoted by agencies such as the FAO as a good example to other developing countries (Li 2019). A key ‘enabling’ role is played by the State in supporting e-commerce and digital ecosystems, not only in underwriting new transport infrastructure to transfer goods and supplies, but importantly in establishing a coordinated and coherent contextual and directive policy and regulatory portfolio. Significant steps in Laos in creating an e-commerce portfolio reach back to the 2012 Law on Electronic Transactions in 2012 and the May 2017 Data Protection Law. More recently, amidst the pandemic, the Government issued the Decree on E-Commerce in April 2021, coming into force the following June, regulating goods and services sales utilising personal electronic devices; sales on electronic marketplaces; and operating electronic marketplaces. The speed and growth of e-commerce requires State policies, strategies and regulations to be responsive in an evolutionary e-commerce ecosystem, especially and medium small-sized businesses, point of focus for a September 2023 government-business seminar on developing SME-focused strategies in the regional market (Lapuekou 2023).

Lao’s approach to e-commerce is set within the overall digital economy policies and strategies in place since December 2021. There are four key documents: the 20-Year National Digital Economy Development Vision (2021–2040), 10-Year National Digital Economy Development Strategy (2021–2030) and 5-Year National Digital Economy Development Plan (2021- 2025). The Vision, Strategy and Plan are synchronised with the 9th 5-Year National Socio-Economy Development Plan. The first three form “the foundation for determining the directions of national digital economy development in the future” (GoL 2021a, b, c, d). These policies set out the primary drivers to achieve the digital objectives; the potential for Laos to engage with and “grasp development opportunities from other countries’’; and delineates the core strategic programmes and work plans of implementation to be adapted by stakeholders to their own, more detailed action plans (GoL 2021d).

In January 2021, according to official Lao Government statistics, with a population of 7.33 mn, there were 5.80 mn mobile connections (79.1% of population); 3.55 mn Internet users (48.4% of population); and 3.60 mn active social media users (49.1% of population) (Luanglath 2021). By January 2023, there had been impressive further development. The State of Digital Laos 2023 indicates that there were 6.45 mn mobile users (85.1% of the population; 4.70 mn Internet users (62.0% of the population); and 3.35 mn social media users (44.2% of the population) (Kemp 2023).

Substantial challenges remain. In August 2023, the Lao Government held the first meeting of the National Committee on Digital Transformation of Laos, Chaired by Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone. Resonating with the wider LLDC experience, oneof the Committee’s challenges is the scale of the “informal economy”. Unregulated and untaxed, it is estimated to be about 27.2% of GDP, approximately US$24bn at GDP PPP levels (World Economics 2023). Internet penetration stands at only around 50%; and over 60% of the country’s population live in isolated rural areas, necessitating ‘last mile’ interventions. Nevertheless, although e-commerce is low in global terms, the growth trend is positive. According to one analysis, Laos is ranked 99th largest market for e-commerce; revenue was expected to reach US$746.7 mn by 2023 and expected to record a compound annual growth rate (CAGR 2023–2027) of 14.2%, resulting in a projected market volume of US$1,270.1 mn by 2027 (ECDB 2023). In response, the Laos Government is nurturing its domestic digital enabling system by working with the Lao ICT Commerce Association (LICA) from September 2021 aimed at supporting Laotian start-up ecosystems; innovative entrepreneurship; establishing policies for digital zones and new innovations, and acting as “a dots connector for all stakeholders in the creation of innovation and building digital talents” (Laotian Times 2021).

In seeking to grasp the potentialities of digital development cooperation, the Lao Government is actively participating in the ASEAN Digital Sector, interweaving Laos’s national digital programme with the ASEAN ICT Masterplan 2010–2015 (AIM2015), the AIM2020, and the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2021–2025 (ADM2025). Additionally, the ASEAN Digital Data Governance Framework addresses cross-border data transfer rules, data classification approach, data privacy protection and data-driven innovation. This framework development is supportive of the initiative of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 (MPAC 2025) on Digital Innovation (ASEAN 2020).

China’s remarkable progress in digital economy development and high tech corporate global rise places China in a strong position to cooperate with Laos in its innovative development programmes. China has set itself the aim of becoming the world leader in the emerging technologies and is already a contender for the title (China Daily Global, 2022). This is evident in recent developments in China, with the Institute of Automation in Beijing opened a new centre for brain-inspired intelligence in 2021 (Burnett 2021). The 2023 Third BRI Forum is particularly significant as China announced a range of BRI digitalisation and e-commerce important initiatives, each offering new cooperation opportunities for Laos. The most notable of these are a ‘multidimensional connectivity network; pilot zones for e-commerce cooperation; the Beijing Initiative on BRI Digital Economy Cooperation; and launch of a Global AI Initiative (Xinhua 2023f). Laotian and Chinese agencies have signed a series of Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) in recent years, focused on Lao recognition of Chinese Invention patent examination outcomes in April 2018 (CNIPA 2018); e-commerce in November 2022 (GoL 2022); and, most recently, cooperation on Artificial Intelligence (AI) research (February 2023) (Meadley 2023). In terms of the questions noted at the beginning of this study, these agreements are indicative of one strand of Laos’s strategy of negotiating its way through the unequal digital sector IDP with China to position itself to maximise it actual gains.

China’s digitalisation strategy has come under intense Western security scrutiny, ‘pushback” measures have followed; the case of Huawei being the most high profile (Pao 2022; Toh 2023). However, drawing upon fieldwork evidence, this issue is deeper and carries significant ingress into the global major power competition.Footnote 8 This is a global contest between the Western Powers and China about digital governance, ownership and, most importantly of all, control. Who gets to write the rules of the new global digital economy, and control it, with Western Governments claiming a threat from China promoted through its expanding IDPs. In the view of Chinese scholars and corporate CEOs interviewed for this paper, such claims are baseless and are motivated by the West’s self-interests. One Chinese academic interviewed summed up this position: “This is not about China; it is all about the West trying to keep its hegemony and the interests of the big American firms. One country cannot set international rules unilaterally, we have to work collectively and inclusively.”Footnote 9

The growing strength of China’s ICT and digital economy development has extended rapidly to Southeast Asia and to Laos through the BRI and China’s State and particularly its high-tech firms.Footnote 10 Huawei, for example, has sought to establish itself as a central driver of the country’s push on ICT and digital development (Huawei 2018). Whilst the Chinese company has a long-established connection and presence on Laos, providing skills training for example, its headline advertisement is very much about embedding its technology into ‘smart’ solutions for the Laos-China Railway and the expressway (Huawei 2020; 2021).

Conclusions

The study presents a number of findings. IDPs are effective in supporting developing economies. In the case of Laos, China and the BRI are contributing vital, large-scale financial critical infrastructural investment; corporate expertise and project management technical knowledge and know-how; knowledge-sharing and lesson-learning cooperation; skills enhancement programmes; social development infrastructure and human resource collaborations across the SDG Agenda. Digitalisation and e-commerce research, knowledge-sharing and ‘lesson-learning’ partnerships with China are critical for Laos’s capacity to “leapfrog” present-day developmental limitations and help meet its SDG commitments. The form and structure of multi-actor relationships are a response to complex, trans-border political, social, economic and environmental challenges which require a more nuanced and varied management approach than narrowly defined state-led development.

The analysis shows that IDP effectiveness is strengthened by non-state “bottom-up”, ‘people-to-people’ agency is a critically-important factor in minimising the potential for a credibility ‘gap’ between intentions and practices. Key enabling factors include: large-scale funding; technical knowledge, skills, experience and quality project management as well as a positive set of internationally recognised metrics covering the business environment, investment and trade climate, ease of doing business, transparency and corruption indices; robust enabling State policies and implementation strategies and public–private partnerships and a stakeholder-inclusive and adaptable ecosystem is an effective mechanism. Country-specific factors such as historical relations and Party-to-Party relations are also significant. Inhibiting factors include geography; poor infrastructure; limited finance, technology, knowledge and skills; indebtedness; exposure to global trade and investment fluctuations and limited market options; as the banana and rubber producer example indicated, small-state agency is strongest pre-project, becoming limited thereafter, confirming the findings of research by Shin et.al. noted in the Introduction.

Calibrated Laos State management of inward migration of Chinese firms and entrepreneurs is necessary to prevent a new socio-economic divide; Chinese language proficiency becoming a prerequisite for ‘decent work’, as employment opportunities increasingly centre on these firms. Global, regional and sub-regional competition is increasingly evident in the development domain as major and emerging powers vie for influence. Applying its long historical experience of balancing competing interests of states surrounding the ‘Lao space’, the Lao Government has the diplomatic experience to navigate these relationships to promote effective IDPs. The 2024 ASEAN Chair offers an infrequent opportunity for Laos to pursue its strategy. The year 2024 is significant too as it also marks the closing of the UN ‘Programme of Action’ for LLDCs (UN 2014), a disrupted decade, but one that is closing on a positive note as the next decade holds out the possibilities of sustainable digital connectivity and e-commerce. However, the power dynamics, the modalities and experiences of engagement that underpin these emerging horizontal and complex set of relations’ which included a range of traditional and non-traditional actors including civil society partnerships and alliances, remain understudied, especially with regard to their impact on sustainable development. This study concludes that diversification of Laos’s IDPs should be a strategic priority to widen its options for development cooperation; a finding that resonates with the generic importance of IDPs for global development and SDGs and, particularly, for weaker partners in IDPs worldwide.