Policy Circulation and South–South Cooperation in Brazil–Africa Relations: Rise, Fall and Change

From developing country to superpower? China, power shifts and the United Nations development pillar

“…Last but not least, South-South cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as China's global umbrella for infrastructure projects have generated sustained controversies and thus provide another set of insights into (the limits of) China's direct control at the UN. Chinese trust funds at the UN-such as the one on South-South cooperation with FAO-are largely controlled by Chinese representatives and often focus on promoting Chinese technologies and development experiences (Haug & Waisbich, 2024, this volume;Waisbich & Haug, 2022). Western member states have been increasingly wary about UN support for China's South-South cooperation which they perceive as a vehicle for supporting China's bilateral interests, notably in combination with UN engagement with the BRI (Haug, 2022).…”

“…Finally, China has also started to selectively underpin specific work streams with financial contributions and thus co-shape political priorities. In the face of Western disinterest, and usually together with G77 allies, China has been at the forefront of promoting and investing in the expansion of UN support for South-South cooperation, often on topics related to agricultural productivity and economic development (Waisbich & Haug, 2022). Over the last decade, there has been a considerable increase in strategies, budget lines, coordination mechanisms and organisational units dedicated to the mainstreaming of South-South cooperation across the UN system, often correlated with expanding Chinese engagement (Haug, 2022).…”

“…Another noteworthy innovation with clear Chinese origins are matchmaking schemes in FAO, UNIDO and UN-DESA (Baumann et al, 2022). Under Chinese leadership, both FAO and UNIDO have also set up centres of excellence dedicated to promoting China's know-how on agribusiness, hydropower and other topics that speak to Chinese interests (see Waisbich & Haug, 2022). While these initiatives add to rather than replace existing policies, they can be expected to cultivate system-wide ideational changes over the long run.…”

“…Contrary to the funding practices of Western donors where UN entities are primarily in charge of project implementation processes, China has fostered a role of UN bodies as brokers that bring together developing countries, providers and other stakeholders on the basis of their complementary interests and in line with concrete Chinese preferences (Haug & Waisbich, 2024, this volume). For instance, the UN has acted as vehicle for global outreach through mechanisms where UN entities help China transfer its knowledge and technologies to developing countries and thus strengthen political and economic ties (Waisbich & Haug, 2022). Of particular relevance here are the matchmaking programmes and centres of excellence mentioned above.…”

Comprehensive power shifts in the making: China's policy transfer partnerships with the United Nations

“…The debate about the People's Republic of China's growing clout at the United Nations (UN) has considerably expanded in recent years, including on peace and security (Foot, 2020, 2024, this volume), international norms (Inboden, 2021; Oud, 2024, this volume) and increasingly so on development issues (Baumann et al., 2022, 2024, this volume). Here, China has not only expanded its engagement with the UN development pillar per se but also intensified its collaboration with individual UN entities to share its own domestic development experiences across the South (Waisbich & Haug, 2022). While these policy transfer partnerships , as we call them here, have remained a largely overlooked dimension of China's role as development partner, they offer insights into the evolving contours of global power dynamics through shifts of and contestations over who shares what, why and how.…”