Editor's note: Xin Ping is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News Agency, CGTN, Global Times, China Daily, etc. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

Water supply used to be a big headache for Senegal, as its northern part is close to the Sahara Desert and its western part is semi-desert. Every day in Balin, a small village in Senegal, people had to get up early in the morning to line up and fetch water for the whole day's use from the only well in the village. Some had to walk more than two kilometers to reach the well. The facilities were dilapidated and villagers' basic needs could not be met for many years.

Things changed in 2018. In September of that year, Balin had its second well, providing adequate clean water for drinking, for irrigation, and livestock farming. This "well of happiness," as local people called it, has improved their living standards enormously. And this is just one out of the 251 wells China built in Senegal. Under the rural well-drilling project financed by the Chinese government under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), more than 1,800 kilometers of pipelines were laid, providing water for two million of Senegal's population. And it has created jobs for over 3,000 local people.

Senegal is not the only country that benefits from the BRI. In Angola, where in most areas people did not have access to tap water, they could only rely on water delivery trucks for daily use and had to pay for it. In June 2022, China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) completed the Cabinda water supply project in Angola and numerous local people got access to tap water for the first time in their lives. "Thumbs up for China! Thank you for coming here to help us!" These were the words of the 600,000 residents who benefited from the projects.

Once basic needs are met, further development is expected. For Kenya, to have a new railway had been a century-long dream. The meter-gauge railway built by the British colonists over a hundred years ago was in disrepair with insufficient transportation capacity. Having no other substitute, the development of the whole country was at a bottleneck until the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway came into being in May 2017. This landmark project under the BRI framework has remarkably reduced travel time from Mombasa to Nairobi to 4.5 hours and cut the logistics costs by 40 percent. With more than 1,000 local enterprises getting on board, this railway contributed 2 percent to Kenya's GDP growth and has given a boost to tourism in Kenya.

Not only the country as a whole benefit greatly from the BRI, but every ordinary person involved could reach out for more possibilities. The Chinese contractors have transferred technology in various ways, enabled tens of thousands of local people to obtain vocational skills, and created about 46,000 local jobs. Before the operation of the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, there was no precedent for a woman to drive a train in Kenya. But recently the first seven female locomotive drivers have been trained by the Chinese company now they are performing well at work. The female drivers' story was covered in Kenya's most prominent media, and they became household names. "In the history of Kenya, there had been no female locomotive driver. On the day of the operation of the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, we were hailed as 'the pride of the nation.' Thanks to China, thanks to the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, we can have the opportunity to be the 'writers of Kenya's history,'" said these women.

Similar stories are abundant all along the Belt and Road. Thanks to the BRI, Cambodia now has expressways, Kazakhstan is linked to the Pacific, the Maldives has a cross-sea bridge, and Laos is no longer a land-locked country but a land-linked hub. According to the World Bank, by 2030, BRI transport projects, if fully implemented, are expected to increase global real income by 0.7 percent to 2.9 percent, lifting 7.6 million people from extreme poverty and 32 million people from moderate poverty.

For the participating countries and their people, the BRI means the possibility of achieving their best potential and a future of opportunities. That offers the answer to why BRI has been so popular. With the extension of the Belt and Road, more good stories are on the way.

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