Emerging donors: differentiation, ownership and harmonisation

Dan Harris of ODI explores what the rise of new donors might mean for the aid effectiveness agenda.

As the forthcoming High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea draws near, some degree of clarity is starting to emerge over key elements of the agenda. There is no doubt at this point that the role of the so-called ‘emerging donors’ is bound to be high on the list. Yet for all the excited discussion, there is little sense of what the arrival of these new (or, in some cases, re-emerging) donors means for the aid effectiveness agenda as developed at earlier High Level Forums in Rome, Paris and Accra.

Ownership and harmonisation

Drawing on the fascinating work presented at a workshop on public perceptions of aid in non-DAC countries held last month at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London (Mawdsley et al., 2011), this article suggests there are important implications of this (re-)emergence for at least two of the core tenets of the Paris Agenda: ownership and harmonisation. Specifically, the research team presented a series of five case studies (Poland, India, Russia, South Africa and China) and while the research on which the workshop was based is more nuanced and detailed than can be addressed here, I would suggest that one of the key take-home messages is that there is far too much diversity among non-DAC (Development Assistance Committee) donors to speak of them as any sort of coherent group.

Variation within the non-DAC group

Just as it is difficult to make generalisations about motivations, priorities and ways of working that hold true for all DAC donors, it is unwise to make such a claim for the non-DAC group. Admittedly, there are a limited number of commonalities across the countries. For example, as other authors have argued with respect to emerging donors like Brazil, each at some point has been an ‘aid’ recipient and makes some claim of knowing better how to engage in development cooperation as a result of this experience (Cabral, L. and Weinstock, J., 2010).

There are important implications of this (re-)emergence for at least two of the core tenets of the Paris Agenda: ownership and harmonisation.

Yet the overwhelming tone of the discussion at the SOAS event and in the literature on each of the countries in question is one of variation. Let me give three examples. 

1. With respect to the DAC/non-DAC divide, the case studies exhibit contrasting attitudes towards the idea of future DAC membership with some countries on trajectories towards membership (eg. Poland where the desire to ‘join the club’ strongly influences government engagement with domestic and international publics) and others for whom the prospect could hardly be less appealing (eg. India and China, where non-membership is a badge of honour and solidarity with potential development partners).

2. There was also a sense of significant attempts on the part of some non-DAC donors to differentiate themselves from other non-DAC donors. This certainly seems to be the case in India, where researchers noted how discourses consistently framed Indian development cooperation in contrast to that of the Chinese (Mawdsley et al., 2011). This intra-group differentiation likely occurs for a range of strategic and geopolitical motivations and persists despite the fact that differentiation in the discourses employed by new donors does not always correspond to a similar differentiation in actual practice (ibid).

3. Even the common history of these countries as ‘recipients’ masks a range of influential historical experiences, both within the context of donor-recipient relationships and otherwise that inevitably shape attitudes towards development cooperation and, as a result, the policies and programmes adopted. For example, as a recipient South Africa expressed a strong preference for knowledge-based (rather than financial) support, a preference that continues to inform its current strategy as a donor and suggests a very different approach from other non-DAC donors. Poland and Russia received aid as ‘transition countries’ rather than as ‘developing countries’, a distinction with clear impact on the policy discourses that accompanied that aid. Today, the latter is re-emerging as a donor with its Cold War-era history as one of the world’s two superpowers still in the memory of its older generations while in contrast China’s Century of Humiliation is often invoked by its elders and has certainly influenced its preference for non-interventionism in development cooperation.

How does this all relate to Busan?

With differentiation rather than coherence as the norm among (re-)emerging non-DAC actors, it may be more appropriate to consider the wider impact of donors on aid effectiveness rather than just the way they manage funds. As a colleague of mine, Jonathan Glennie has pointed out, one of the most significant and potentially most welcome by-products of the presence of the emerging powers in the development landscape is the opening up of additional policy space for developing countries:

[T]he rise of countries that do things differently – crucially, emphasising the role of the state far more in economic endeavours – has transformed the world of the possible for African governments. As I rattled off my list of policies that were once laughed at but are now back on the table (including infant industry protection and industrial policy generally, capital controls, new forms of import substitution, even nationalisation of key industries), I looked over to my fellow panellists and saw the edifying sight of senior OECD and AfDB economists nodding with agreement at views that would have been anathema a few years ago.

The opening up of additional policy space, however, can be seen as a result not only of the demonstration effects Jonathan describes, but also of the emergence of a sort of development marketplace in which developing countries increasingly have options regarding from whom they would like to receive development assistance and the strings attached to that assistance.

More harmonisation, one of the key tenets of aid effectiveness to date, would thus in fact be detrimental to the development of this increased [policy] space.

There are two implications of this. First, the issue of ownership emerges ever more strongly on the agenda for Busan. Increased policy space has been a highly contentious issue in some circles, with accusations that the policies and practices adopted by emerging donors are freeing developing country leaders from the pressure to comply with Western notions of economic and political orthodoxy, perhaps including conventional thinking on human rights. Whether or not the ‘space’ given to governments results in the outcomes traditional donors or a recipient country’s citizens would like to see is clearly uncertain, but what is readily apparent is that this phenomenon potentially fractures (though does not necessarily destroy) the hierarchy of historical donor-recipient relationships and contributes to a stronger position for some recipients.

Second, and particularly interesting as we approach the meetings in Busan, is that the existence and functioning of this marketplace depends on the continued variation among non-DAC donors and between DAC and non-DAC donors. More harmonisation, one of the key tenets of aid effectiveness to date, would thus in fact be detrimental to the development of this increased space.

Is it possible then that the very principles that have sat at the core of discussions of aid effectiveness debates since 2003 should be challenged at Busan? Clearly there is a discussion to be had.

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