China’s campaign to build a massive network of land and sea links connecting Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa is expected to benefit the African countries along the route. Chinese companies will spend at least $1 trillion on roads, ports, and other updates to infrastructure in more than 60 countries that make up the "One Belt, One Road.”

China has already financed and built a $4 billion railway between Djibouti to Addis Ababa, the continent’s first transnational electric railway. In Kenya, Chinese firms have built a new railway connecting Nairobi to the country’s port city of Mombasa, with plans to extend the railway to Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There’s one drawback to the project observers are calling China’s Marshall Plan. The One Belt One Road initiative, marketed as a modern-day recreation of the ancient Silk Road trading route, is about gaining access to new markets for Chinese goods. (Soft power and finding work for Chinese construction companies are important factors too.)