http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6088-6240
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Abstract
While South-South Development Cooperation (SSDC) is claimed to unlock domestically sourced expertise of countries of the Global South to address development challenges in countries with similar political economic and social conditions, not much is known about the capacity building approaches used. This article analyses and compares the capacity building strategies of three of the main protagonists of SSDC, India, Brazil and the PR China. A critical case study approach is used in which six flagship projects in the health sector in Mozambique are examined. The findings show that despite a common focus on domestic experiences, peer-to-peer interaction and a hands-on approach, Brazil's institutional capacity building strategy contrasts with the more staff and organizational strengthening of the PR China and India. Moreover, the article nuances the claimed achievements of the approaches and proposes to look at the acknowledgement of contextual differences and the extent to which the cooperation is driven by demand and proper needs assessment as explanatory factors.
Notes on contributor
Tom De Bruyn (degrees in Geography VU Brussels and Development Planning UC London) was senior research associate at HIVA-KU Leuven (and currently works for the Government of Flanders and finalizes a PhD thesis on South-South Cooperation in Mozambique and Malawi.
ORCID
Tom De Bruyn http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6088-6240
Notes
1 See for a discussion on the different viewpoints Cheru Citation2016; Carmody Citation2013; Davies Citation2010; Kharas et al. Citation2011; Kragelund Citation2008; Ladd Citation2010; Manning Citation2006; Mawdsley Citation2012; Mohan Citation2016; De Bruyn Citation2013a; Citation2013b).
2 Available literature tends to focus on one specific sector, that is agriculture, see for instance a special issue of World Development 2016 Vol. 81.
3 Important to note is that a comparison with North-South Development Cooperation approaches is beyond the scope of this study. For an examples of such a comparison (between Brazil's and Finland's approaches) in the Mozambican context, reference can be made to Nogueira de Morais and Virtanen (Citation2015).
4 Yin (Citation1984, p. 13) asserts that: ‘a case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’. As Flyvbjerg (Citation2006, p. 15) asserts, a ‘critical case can be defined as having strategic importance in relation to the general problem’. A distinction is made between most-likely and least likely critical cases. The former refer to cases which are likely confirm a hypothesis or proposition, while the latter the falsify these. Selected cases should allow a statement such as ‘If it is valid for this case, it is valid for all (or many) cases.’ Or ‘If it is not valid for this case, then it is not valid for any (or only few) cases.’ (ibid.).
5 In contrast to agriculture (see special issue of World Development 2016 Vol. 81) health has not yet received as much as attention. The findings of this article will therefore contribute to cross-sectoral comparisons of capacity building approaches. Unfortunately this is beyond the scope of this article.
6 In addition a practical reason should be mentioned: this research features in a broader study for the Government of Flanders which focused also (among other) on this sector and country.
7 Interviews with representatives of the Ministry of Health (R12 & 18) in November 2013 and May 2015.
8 See for instance the project's website: www.panafricanenetwork.com.
9 It was agreed with the respondents to render the interview quotes anonymous. Interviews were recorded on tape (if the interviewee gave his her consent) or notes were taken. The cited respondents are referred to with R#.
10 Most existing studies focus on a specific Southern development cooperation provider (for Brazil see Almeida, Citation2010, Almeida et al., Citation2010, Buss, Citation2011, Buss and Ferreira, Citation2010, Cabral et al., Citation2014, Russo and Shankland, Citation2014, Russo et al., Citation2014, Torronteguy, Citation2010 and a special issue of the Revista Eletrónica de Comunicação, Informação e Inovação em Saúde. 2010, Vol.4, No.1; for China see Brautigam, Citation2009, Citation2011, Brown et al., Citation2013, Fan, Citation2013, Huang, Citation2011, Shen and Fan, Citation2014; for India see Chaturvedi, Citation2011), and there are publications which compare the efforts of several emerging economies or analyze them as a bloc (see Bliss Citation2010; Citation2011, Chaturvedi and Thorsteinsdóttier, Citation2012, GHSi, Citation2012, Gomez, Citation2009, Harmer et al. Citation2013, Kirton et al., Citation2012, Kirton et al., Citation2014, Ruger and Ng, Citation2010, Watt et al. Citation2014, Yu, Citation2008). The majority of these studies focus on the effects that these countries exert on global health.
11 A similar exercise was carried out for the involvement of the rising powers in the agriculture sector in Malawi (see De Bruyn, Citation2016c).
12 Transparency International: http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results.
13 This followed the Planos de Acção para a Redução de Pobreza Absoluta (PARPA) of 2011–2005 and 2006–2009. In the most recent poverty
14 African Development Bank, Austria, Canada, Denmark, European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the World Bank. Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain have recently withdrawn from this group, but they remain, together with The United States and the United Nations, associated members. This means that they attend meetings and coordination initiatives, but do not commit to a common policy.
15 Including Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain who were still members of the budget support donor group at that time.
16 For a more elaborate analysis of the public expenditures policies (which is beyond the scope of this paper), see Mogues and do Rosario (Citation2016).
17 See Wethal Citation2017 for an overview of Mozambique's external relations with donors.
18 According to analysis of Liu et al. (Citation2014) and Grépin et al. (Citation2014), China's pledged health aid to Africa would range annually between US$ 150 million US$ 231 million, making the country the ninth donor worldwide to Africa.
19 According to figures compiled by Li (Citation2011) and McLaughlin et al. (Citation2014), about 230,000 Chinese medical workers have been sent to 66 million people, assisting 270 million people. At the end of 2013 some 1171 Chinese medical workers would have been active in 113 medical centers in 49 countries. Only seven of these teams were working outside of Africa. Liu et al. (Citation2014) estimated the value of the medical teams at US$ 60 million.
20 Interview with representative of the Mozambican Ministry of Health (R1) in June 2015.
21 Obtained from the Mozambican Ministry of Health.
22 Interview with Chinese medical expert based in Mozambique (R23) in November 2013.
23 Interview with representative of the Mozambican Ministry of Health (R1 and 3) in June 2015.
24 Interview with representatives of the Mozambican Ministry of Health (R3) in June 2015.
25 Interview with Chinese academic expert of the Peking University, Department Global Health, School of Public Health (R4) in November 2014.
26 The malaria centre demonstrates the difficulty of obtaining correct information. For instance the Aiddata website notes the following information: ‘China assisted in setting up and renovating a malaria control centre in Maputo, Mozambique. China renovated Infulen Hospital's laboratories and training rooms, provided equipment, and sent a group of doctors to train the staff. According to the Mozambican Ambassador to China, Antonio Inacio Junio, China helped conceive the infrastructure for the new centre. The center started operation on October 30, 2009, and it was officially handed over on November 25, 2009 with Mo Garrido, Mozambican Minister of Health, and Tian GuangFeng, Chinese Ambassador, in attendance. 4 malaria experts were sent on September 15, 2009 to Angola first for 45 days and then to Mozambique for another 45 days to help with malaria control training’. However, none of the representatives of the Mozambican government could confirm that there the centre was operational and there was even discussion about the exact location of the centre.
28 Interview with representative of Brazilian Embassy (R6) in November 2013.
29 Interview with representative of Fiocruz (R8) in November 2013 and Tavares de Luna et al., (Citation2014).
30 Project description document, obtained from the Mozambican Ministry of Health.
31 Interviews with representative of Fiocruz (R8) and of DFID Mozambique (R15) in March 2013.
32 Interview with representative of Fiocruz (R8) in November 2013.
33 Ibid. and http://www.scidev.net/global/education/multimedia/system-boost-health-brazil-mozambique.html.
36 Interview with representative of TCIL (R9) in November 2013 and of the Central Hospital of Maputo (R10) in May 2015.
38 The class room and the PAEN infrastructure was constructed at the top floor of the hospital. The Indian government financed the construction of a class room equipped with video cameras and other ICT equipment, a room for teleconsultations with medical equipment
39 Interview with representative of TCIL (R9) in November 2013 and of the Central Hospital of Maputo (R11-13) in May-June 2015 and representative of the Mozambican Ministry of Health (R14) in May 2015.
40 Interview with representatives of the Mozambican Ministry of Health (R20 & 21) in November 2013.
41 Interview with representative of Fiocruz (R22) in November 2013.
42 Although also a critical assessment is needed about the claimed successes domestically. For instance India does have considerable expertise in developing e-Health. It has been in the last decade the site of various experiments in this field (Duclos, Citation2012), but at the same time Scott et al. (Citation2012) assert that most of the initiatives remain in the ‘project mode’.
43 Interview with representative of the Mozambican Ministry of Health (R20) in November 2013.