The Global Gateway (GG) initiative embodies the European Union’s (EU) flagship infrastructure investment and connectivity strategy. Launched in December 2021, it is designed to mobilize up to 300 billion EUR in investments between 2021 and 2027. Conceived in response to both growing global infrastructure needs and strategic competition, GG represents a shift in the EU’s approach to development cooperation, moving beyond traditional Official Development Assistance (ODA) to a blended model that combines public funds, private capital, and partnerships with like-minded actors. It explicitly integrates geopolitical objectives into connectivity and infrastructure financing, and implicitly aims to position the EU as a valuesdriven alternative to competing initiatives such as China’s Belt and Road (BRI).
Institutionally, GG is managed primarily by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), with contributions from other Commission DGs, the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and Member States through the Team Europe framework.
GG’s scope covers five thematic pillars: digital (including 5G, submarine cables, and data infrastructure), climate and energy (renewables, hydrogen corridors, energy interconnections), transport (ports, rail, and road connectivity), health (pharmaceutical supply chains, manufacturing facilities), and education and research (skills development, academic exchanges). These areas are intended to evolve in line with shifting geopolitical and technological contexts. Recent initiatives, such as GG projects supporting secure submarine cable routes – including the Blue Raman intercontinental submarine cable stretching from Europe to India with intermediate landings in the Middle East and Eastern Africa – illustrate how GG is expanding into critical maritime and cyber infrastructure domains.
Geographically, GG is global in ambition, with priority regions including Africa, the Indo-Pacific, the EU’s Eastern and Southern Neighbourhoods, and Latin America/Caribbean. Nevertheless, under the current resource allocation (the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework), Africa emerges as the primary area of geographic focus, With a geographical focus on Africa, as the Global Gateway Africa Europe Investment Package was endowed with 203 million EUR from the EU budget for 2021–2024 and overall, the bloc pledged to allocate 150 billion EUR for Africa under Global Gateway “to narrow the investment gap and de-risk investment mobilization in [the continent].” Yet, the Indo-Pacific is also expected to receive a significant share of funding, as the EU has indicated an allocation in the range of 10–12 billion EUR, reflecting both economic opportunities and strategic concerns over supply chain resilience and regional security.
Financially, the 300 billion EUR target is to be met through a combination of EU budget instruments (notably the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument; NDICI–Global Europe), the EIB, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and leveraged private sector investment. While precise breakdowns fluctuate with project pipelines, preliminary allocations suggest a strong emphasis on climate/energy (up to 50 percent of total commitments), followed by digital infrastructure, transport, and human development.
Overall, Global Gateway seeks to deliver “sustainable and trusted” infrastructure that advances partner countries’ development priorities while serving EU strategic interests. By linking connectivity investments with governance, environmental, and transparency standards, GG positions itself not just as a funding mechanism but as a norm-setting platform in the contested global infrastructure space. Notably, its inception coincides with the rise of several similar initiatives seeking to adjust the course of global development cooperation by centering strategic interests and catalyzing commercial investments. These include the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), which is the latest avatar of the US-led G7 Build Back Better World (B3W) Initiative, and the UK’s Clean, Green Initiative (CGI). Consequently, the initiative aims to grow the EU’s geopolitical muscle as it allows the bloc to leverage trade and investment as its geostrategic “key foreign policy tools”.
