Assessing the EU’s and Turkey’s Triangular Development Cooperation partnership in the Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the Triangular Development Cooperation (TDC) in the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is foreseeable or not between the EU and Turkey. In doing so, we first built a new and original framework based upon five independent variables as follows: (1) foreign policy interests and strategic areas in the recipient country; (2) Convergence of development policy modalities and practices; (3) level of interdependence between DAC-donor and southern provider; (4) friendly relations and share of norms and values between the development cooperation providers and (5) African leaders’ perception about the added value of the TDC. Second, we tested these five variables in our case studies to determine the TDC’s likelihood level between the EU and Turkey in the SSA by using three indicators as follows: positive, negative or partially positive. In this vein, it first profiles Turkey’s and the EU’s position as development aid providers in the SSA to highlight their specificities. Then, it examines the TDC's main features, strengths and weaknesses.