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Abstract
This article discusses the transformation in development architecture, focusing on the role of emerging powers and the growing relevance of South–South cooperation (ssc). Drawing on a conceptual toolkit based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, it aims to approach ssc as a narrative and to understand the processes of contestation that have turned international development into a battlefield since the end of the 1990s. The article argues that the emergence of ssc has contributed to decentring the field of international development, both in terms of the agents authorised to play and the practices considered legitimate. Within this process the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation, led by the oecd’s Development Assistance Committee, and the United Nations Development Cooperation Forum have become two sites on the battlefield on which the borders of international development are being redrawn.
Notes
1. Gore, “The New Development Cooperation Landscape,” 770.
2. Kharas and Rogerson, Horizon 2025.
3. Eyben and Laura, “Emerging and Submerging Powers.”
4. Woodward, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
5. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory.
6. Leander, “Thinking Tools,” 9.
7. Villumsen, “Capitalizing on Bourdieu.”
8. Führer, The Story of Official Development Assistance,” 24.
9. According to Bourdieu, the definition encompasses two dimensions: it ‘is a field of forces, whose necessity is imposed on agents who are engaged in it, and…a field of struggles within which agents confront each other, with differentiated means and ends according to their position in the structure of the field of forces’. Bourdieu, Practical Reason, 32.
10. Final Communiqué of the Asian–African Conference, Bandung, April 24, 1995.
11. The Sixth Special Session of the UN General Assembly, April 9 to May 2, 1974, adopted, on May 1, 1974, the “Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order,” A/RES/3201 (S-VI); and the “Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order,” A/RES/3202 (S-VI).
12. Shaw, “The Non-Aligned Movement.”
13. Villumsen, “Capitalizing on Bourdieu.”
14. United Nations, Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries 1978 Documentation, 1978.
15. Group of 77 South Summit, “Declaration of the South Summit,” Havana, Cuba, April 10–14, 2000.
16. Raghavan, “After Seattle.”
17. Chin and Qadir, “Introduction,” 496.
18. Manning, The dac, 3.
19. Dijkstra, “The prsp Approach”; Gottschalk, “The Macro Content”; Gottschalk, “The Effectiveness”; and Lavers, The Politics of Bilateral Donor Assistance.
20. Mawdsley et al., “A ‘Post-aid World’?,” 29.
21. United Nations, World Economic Situation and Prospects.
22. For dac the emergence of Southern providers implied rearranging the classification schemes and creating new hybrid categories such as ‘donor–recipient’ agents. The terminology of ‘hybrid actors’ points to emerging taxonomies, which are disputed by the actors within the field, at the same time as previous categorisations – including ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries – lose their interchangeable character and applicability. See Davies, “Towards a New Development Cooperation Dynamic.”
23. The wp-eff was responsible for managing the Paris Meeting and the process of high-level meetings, as well as the Open Forum for cso Development Effectiveness. In 2003 the working group started as a dac subsidiary.
24. The Task Team on South–South Cooperation (tt-ssc) was created in 2009 and derived from the Accra Agenda for Action commitment to partnerships. wpf-eff and dac consider it a Southern-led platform. Its main achievement was the mapping of 110 cases of South–South and triangular cooperation presented at the Bogotá High-level Event on South–South Cooperation and Capacity Development in 2010.
25. Killen and Rogerson, “Global Governance.”
26. Mawdsley, From Recipients to Donors, 76.
27. Three years later the dcf was established and became operational as a new ecosoc function. Its structure embraces biennial cycles of high-level meetings and a final dcf meeting held at UN headquarters. See Kindornay and Samy, Establishing a Legitimate Development Co-operation Architecture.
28. Verschaeve, “Is the Development Assistance Committee?”
29. Glennie, “Who should Lead the Aid Effectiveness Debate in the Future?”
30. Verschaeve, “Is Development Assistance Committee?”
31. Molina, “Can the UN Development Cooperation Forum?”
32. Indeed, the doxic battle is eroding the main principles of both modalities, nsc and ssc. Assessed from the Southern position, aid practices, as predicted by the effectiveness agenda, are still hiding under the principle of ownership, the structural hierarchy of the field, and the customary conditionalities. Nevertheless, while evaluating Southern practices, Northern donors consider that ssc is either complementary to nsc or a new colonial enterprise.
33. Kharas, The Global Partnership.
34. Already in the wp-eff the idea was to move away from previous hlfs, which were criticised for their highly technical nature. See Kindornay and Samy, Establishing a Legitimate Development Co-operation Architecture.
35. Kim and Lee, “Busan and Beyond.”
36. Atwood, “Creating a Global Partnership.”
37. Eyben, “Struggles in Paris,” 88.
38. Busan Outcome Document, Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation, Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Busan, South Korea, December 1, 2011, §2.
39. Eyben and Savage, “Emerging and Submerging Powers.”
40. Verschaeve, “Is Development Assistance Committee?”
41. Atwood, “Creating a Global Partnership.”
42. There are different views among middle-income countries and ssc providers. While some countries, like China, Brazil, and India, are highly critical of the gpedc process, others, like Mexico, Turkey, and Indonesia, identify it as the right forum for standardising principles on ssc. Within the gpedc’s Steering Committee, three distinct constituencies were established (recipient countries, donor countries, and providers and recipients of development cooperation, among others), drawing on wp-eff’s member categories: oda recipient countries; recipients and providers of assistance; and donor countries reporting to dac. See Kharas, The Global Partnership; and Assunção and Esteves, “The brics and the gpedc.”