https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5105-1973
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Abstract
The year 2015 witnessed an important shift in India’s development cooperation, resulting in uneven convergence towards practices associated with ‘mainstream’ aid donors. This is demonstrative of a wider evolution in Southern development actors. Using the case of Indian governmental concessional lines of credit (LoCs), this article demonstrates how diplomatic, strategic and party-political interests drove the Indian state to adopt policies from the World Bank and UK on project selection, design, tendering and monitoring. These were intended to increase technical proficiency, timeliness and development outcomes but also to change the companies undertaking these projects. Such policies depart from the non-interventionist, non-hierarchical norms of South– South cooperation espoused by Southern countries emerging as major development actors. However, whilst converging in these aspects of technical planning and implementation, the political and strategic interests driving the LoC changes did not extend to examining developmental or environmental outcomes; state-to-state relations continue to have primacy in approving projects. Uneven convergence has therefore occurred, with a change in technical policies but greater persistence of South–South cooperation norms. This reflects the wider multi-directional evolution of development, with ‘Southern’ powers increasingly adopting policies from Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors and the World Bank whilst they redefine aid and increase blended finance.
Acknowledgements
I first thank Udisha Saklani, who provided invaluable support as a research assistant collecting a statistical basis presented here. I also acknowledge the fieldwork support, introductions and advice given by key contacts including Dr Renu Modi, Dr Emma Mawdsley and Dr Maan Barua, and Professor Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, who was my doctoral supervisor when I first started this research. For my 2020 fieldtrip, I thank the Institute for Economic Growth, Delhi, for logistical support. Earlier drafts were greatly improved by comments from Dr Mawdsley, Dr Taggart and an anonymous reviewer. The anonymous reviewers for the article also provided helpful feedback that improved the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Author’s calculation using publicly available data.
2 Chosen according to the African Union’s Banjul formula.
3 Interviews, Journalists, Delhi, 2016.
4 And to some extent in Development Assistance Committee (DAC) ones like U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or JICA, probably the OECD donor most similar to South–South cooperation.
5 eg Sweden’s SIDA and Norway’s NORAD have been more supportive of state-owned electricity sectors and national utilities.
6 eg Belgium’s Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) and Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
7 For example in the themes of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation.
8 The international standard inter-bank lending rate based on trading in the city of London.
9 Johns Hopkins China–Africa Research Initiative Citation2021.
10 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016.
11 Interview, Junior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016.
12 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
13 For China, see Bräutigam (Citation2011); for Brazil, see Dye and Alencastro (Citation2020).
14 Interviews, Senior Official 1, 2, 4, DPA; Former Senior Official 1, 3, MEA, 2016–2020.
15 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
16 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016.
17 Interview, Senior Official 3, DPA, 2020.
18 Interview, Former Senior Official 5, MEA, 2020.
19 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016.
20 Paraphrase: Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
21 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016, echoed by others (Senior Officials 3 and 4, DPA, 2020).
22 Interview, Senior Official 2, Exim Bank, 2020.
23 Ibid.
24 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
25 Ibid.
26 Interview, Senior Official 1, DPA, 2016.
27 Interviews, Senior Official 2, Exim Bank; Senior Officials 3 and 4, DPA, 2020.
28 Interviews, Senior Officials 3 and 4, DPA, 2020.
29 Interview, Senior Officials, 1, 3, 4, DPA, 2016–2020.
30 Interview, Senior Official 3, DPA, 2020.
31 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
32 Interview, Senior Official 3, DPA, 2020.
33 Interviews, Senior Officials 1, 3 and 4, DPA; Senior Official 1 and 2, Exim, 2016–2020.
34 Interview, Senior Official 1, DPA, 2016.
35 Ibid.
36 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016.
37 Ibid.
38 Interview, Senior Official 2, Exim Bank, 2020.
39 Ibid.
40 One interviewee told of visiting a fish-processing plant in Ghana, for example, which was constructed but closed as it had no environmental permit.
41 Interview, Senior Official 2, DPA, 2016.
42 Ibid.
43 The German Development Cooperation Agency.
44 Interviews, Senior Officials 1, 3 and 4, DPA, 2016–2020.
45 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016 (‘Would love to be [more] united as an aspiration’).
46 Interviews, Researchers, RIS, ORF, Indian Council on World Affairs, 2020; Additionally see Modi’s speech at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in 2020.
47 Interview, Senior Official 3, DPA, 2020; ‘don’t like to impose, entirely demand driven’ (Interview, Senior Official 2, Exim Bank, 2020).
48 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
49 Interviews, Senior Former Officials 1, 3 and 4, MEA, 2016–2020.
50 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
51 Interview, Senior Former Official 4, MEA, 2020.
52 Interview, Senior Official 1, DPA, 2016.
53 Interview, Researcher, Think Tank, 2016.
54 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
55 Angelique, OIA, Lucky Exports and Jaguar Overseas.
56 Interview, Senior Official 1, Exim Bank, 2016; echoed by interviews with the DPA, with former ambassadors and think tank employees between 2016 and 2020.
57 Interview, Senior Official 3, DPA, 2020.
58 Interview, Senior Official 1, DPA, 2016.
59 Interviews, Senior Officials, OIA, Jaguar Overseas, 2020. eg Jaguar frozen out of Bulawayo Power project (https://www.herald.co.zw/re-powering-project-faces-hurdle/; accessed July 16, 2020).
60 Including BHEL solar parks, Kalpataru’s electrification schemes and Larson & Turbo’s railway in Mauritius (CII Citation2018).
61 Interviews, Senior Former Officials 3 and 4, MEA, 2020.
62 Interview, Senior Official, Shapoorji & Pallonji, 2020.
63 Interview, Senior Official, Afcons, 2020.
64 Interviewed in Delhi and Mumbai, 2020.
65 Interview, Former Senior Official, OIA, 2020.
66 Author’s calculation based on Exim Bank statistics.
67 Interviews, Former Senior Officials, 3 and 4 MEA, 2020.
68 Bajpai and Chong (Citation2019) report persistent issues of unfilled posts.
69 eg only 20 ranking diplomats for Africa in 2014 (Taylor Citation2016).
70 Interview, Senior Former Official 4, MEA, 2020.
71 Interviews, Researchers, Former Senior Officials, 3, 4, MEA; Former and Current Senior Officials, OIA, 2020.
72 Interview, Senior Official, Ghana Embassy, 2019.
73 Interviews, Former Senior Officials, 3 and 4 MEA, 2020.
74 Interviews, think tank employees, Delhi and Mumbai, 2016–2020.
75 Interview, Senior Official 1, DPA, 2016.
76 Interview, Senior Official 4, DPA, 2020.
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Barnaby Joseph Dye
Barnaby Joseph Dye joined the Global Development Institute in 2018 and is Research Fellow at FutureDAMS, a UK government-financed interdisciplinary research project. He previously completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford. Prior to that, he completed an undergraduate degree in geography at the University of Cambridge, followed by a master’s in environment and development at King’s College, London. Throughout his studies, he developed an interest in the politics of development, the rationales behind large projects and their processes of implementation. This led to his interest in the ‘emerging powers’ in Africa and the study of dams as a site for understanding the ideology, practices and actors involved in development.