South–South cooperation and the future of development assistance: mapping actors and options

Abstract

International development cooperation is undergoing fundamental changes. New – or often re-emerging – actors have gained importance during the past two decades, and are increasingly challenging the traditional approach to development cooperation associated with the members of the Development Assistance Committee of the oecd. Their supposedly alternative paradigm, ‘South–South cooperation’ (ssc), has been recognised as an important cooperation modality, but faces contradictions that are not too different from those of its North–South counterpart. ssc providers are highly heterogeneous in terms of policies, institutional arrangements, and engagement with international forums and initiatives. This article contributes to current debates on ssc by mapping the diversity of its actors – based on illustrative case studies from the first and second ‘wave’ of providers – and by presenting and discussing some possible scenarios for the future of ssc within the international aid system.

Keywords:

• South–South cooperation
• emerging powers
• development assistance
• aid reform

Notes

1. Woods, “Whose Aid?”; Mawdsley, From Recipients to Donors; Chaturvedi et al., Development Cooperation; and Park, “New Development Partners.”

2. Chin and Quadir, “Introduction.”

3. Park, “New Development Partners.”

4. Kragelund, “Back to basics?”

5. Mawdsley et al., “A ‘Post-aid World’?”

6. undcf, “South–South Cooperation.”

7. These were the early years of South–South Cooperation, strongly shaped by the ideas of anticolonial movements in colonial states or countries that during those times had recently gained independence. See de Sá e Silva, “South–South Cooperation.”

8. Golub, “From the New International Economic Order.”

9. For background on the United Nations Office for South–South Cooperation, see http://ssc.undp.org/content/ssc/about/Background.html.

10. United Nations Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (tcdc), Buenos Aires Plan of Action (1978).

11. Leite, “Cooperação Sul–Sul.”

12. Quadir, “Rising Donors”; and Park, “New Development Partners.”

13. oecd, The Paris Declaration.

14. oecd-dac, “Busan Partnership.” (emphasis added)

15. Mawdsley et al., “A ‘Post-aid World’?”

16. See “Closing Remarks by Navid Hanif, Director of Office of ecosoc Support and Coordination, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations.” Conference of South–South Cooperation Partners, New Delhi, April 16, 2013. http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/newfunct/pdf13/dcf_delhi_closing_statement_hanif.pdf.

17. Manning, “Will Emerging Donors?”

18. Walz and Ramachandran, Brave New World. See also Zimmermann and Smith, “More Actors, More Money.”

19. Walz and Ramachandran, Brave New World; and Manning, “Will Emerging Donors?”

20. Chin, “China as a ‘Net Donor’.”

21. Naím, “Rogue Aid.”

22. Bräutigam, The Dragon’s Gift.

23. Walz and Ramachandran, Brave New World.

24. Chin, “China as a ‘Net Donor’,” 581. The question of how to estimate Chinese volumes has stirred up a lively discussion in, for example, Project Aid Data, Does the Giver Matter?; and Bräutigam, “Rubbery Numbers.”

25. Bräutigam, “Aid ‘with Chinese Characteristics’.”

26. Fonseca and Da, “A China na África”; and Abdenur and Marcondes de Souza Neto, “Cooperación China en América Latina.”

27. Stolte, Brazil in Africa.

28. oecd-dac, “Fourth High-level Forum.”

29. gpedc, “Who Supports the Global Partnership?”

30. Woods, “Whose Aid?” More recently, however, some important critical voices have started raising concerns. See, for example, Sanusi, “Africa must Get Real.”

31. Abreu, “Brazil and South–South Cooperation.”

32. Cabral and Shankland, Narratives of Brazil–Africa Cooperation; and Inoue and Vaz, “Brazil as ‘Southern Donor’.”

33. Dauvergne and Farias, “The Rise of Brazil,” 908–909.

34. Jordan, “Brazil to Cancel US$900M in African Debt.”

35. Federal Government of the Republic of Brazil, “Entrevista concedida pela Presidenta da República.”

36. Jordan, “Brazil to Cancel US$900M in African Debt.”

37. Dauvergne and Farias, “The Rise of Brazil,” 908.

38. Schlesinger, Cooperação e Investimentos.

39. oecd, “Indonesia and the oecd.”

40. Bantug-Herrera, A Platform for Asian Emerging Donors.

41. More information is available on the Teams homepage: www.ssc-indonesia.org/index.php.

42. Japan International Cooperation Agency Research Institute (jicari), Scaling Up.

43. Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Turkey’s Development Cooperation.”

44. “Turkey.”

45. Aynte, Turkey’s Increasing Role.

46. undp Turkey, “Turkey is on the Way.”

47. Amexcid is the Agencia Mexicana de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo. More information on it is available at www.amexcid.gob.mx.

48. Amexcid, Annual Report, 2012.

49. Ibid., 4.

50. See Conference of Southern Providers, South–South Cooperation.

51. See ecosoc,” Mandate of the dcf.”

52. Besharati, Common Goals and Differential Commitments.