The Rise of Postcolonial States as Donors: a challenge to the development paradigm?

The Potential Role of Non-Traditional Donors’ Aid in Africa

“…Instead, they point towards a new world economic order characterised a) by triangular relations made up of the traditional North, a group of emerging 'middle' economies, and a traditional but very heterogeneous South (Shaw et al, 2007); b) by a quest from 'second-tier' states to get more political influence; and c) by a multi-polar world with new and old players engaging politically as well as economically in a variety of ways (Subacchi, 2008). Second, it is increasingly problematic to claim that the Southern donors (in particular China and India) speak the voice of the South (Six, 2009). …”

“…These include, among others, Naidu & Herman (2009) who seek to single out how China and India provide development assistance and conceptualise their engagement with African countries, McCormick (2008) who proposes a new framework to analyse aid flows from these two economies to Africa, and Six (2009) who questions the longterm consequences of the rise of China and India as donors in terms of our understanding of development. This paper builds on these studies and seeks to further our understanding of the implications of the rise of South-South development cooperation 2 both for African partners and traditional donors.…”

“…Section three then takes a closer look at the following four Southern donors' aid relationship with Africa: China, India, Brazil and South Africa. These donors are chosen because they share a number of similarities and hence are of particular interest to the study of South-South development cooperation: they are emerging economies, they are regional powers, and they have a specific 'dual' position among developing countries as both donors and recipients (Grimm et al, 2009;Rowlands, 2008;Six, 2009). Their engagement in Africa is of particular importance as Africa has been economically and politically marginalised for two decades but for its aid relationship with traditional donors.…”

“…Therefore, development aid, or rather, a shift from mostly being an aid recipient to also being an aid donor, was perceived by the then Minister of Finance Jaswant Singh as a means to get more international political leverage and ultimately obtain a seat in (an enlarged) UN Security Council. Essentially, development aid and in particular the 'India Development Initiative' launched in 2003 20 was perceived as a means to brand India anew: the world's attention had to be diverted away from India's internal problems of poverty and inequality towards its role as an emerging economy (Agrawal, 2007;Six, 2009). …”

The Politics of Inclusive Development

“…This revolves around, first, a post-colonial solidarity based on shared histories of colonization and, second, the potentially powerful demonstration effect of the 'China model'. Six (2009) argues that a key difference that China and India bring to the aid and development agenda is they occupy a 'dual position' (p. 1110) being both of the developing world but also key drivers of growth in the global economy. This means they do not need to fall back on teleologies of emancipation bound up in Western development discourse but are freer to be honest about their interest-based engagements with African countries.…”