15
May
Official development assistance (or foreign aid) emerged as a mechanism to promote economic development in the 1950sa . What began as an act of diplomatic solidarity and temporary relief in the aftermath of the Second World War, by the 1990s had acquired such salience that most industrialised nations had structured aid policies, established aid agencies and joined the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). At the beginning of the new Millennium, foreign aid had become a norm rather than the exception in the industrialised world (Lancaster 2007: 13). A gradual and steady rise of official development assistance (ODA) flows has been observed over the last 60 yearsb . During most of this period, developed countries (or traditional donors) provided the main share of global ODA3 . This tendency started to change by the late 1990s and emerging donors (or non-DAC donors) increased their participation. Countries that not long ago were recipients of ODA today are becoming important development contributorsd . Robust macroeconomic conditions in most of MICs give them large marge of manoeuvre to channel resources to South-South Cooperation (SSC) flowse . South-South Cooperation has become a mechanism of assertive foreign policy used by new donors to gain political and economic influence, that at the same time, is embedded in a discourse of solidarity, complementarity and lack of hierarchy (Abdenur and Fonseca 2013: 1477). According to the aid research and database Aiddata.org, 38 non-DAC donors have been identifiedf . The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are particularly active, with their policies acquiring extended geographical outreach and the size and sectorial diversity of their programs growing. Similarly, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Chile, Thailand, the Gulf Countries and even Cuba and Venezuela are active providers of development assistance. While these countries share dynamic economies, colonial past, common challenges and the experience of having been recipients of aid, they also constitute a heterogeneous group with diverse practices (Rowlands 2012). These elements along with strong emphasis on respect for the principles of non-interference and national sovereignty, rejection of hierarchy and the pursuit of common benefits lie at the core of new development partners’ activities (Mawdsley 2012: 152).
Access and download the full Robledo Bandung: Journal of the Global South (2015) 2:3 paper at: http://www.bandungjournal.com/content/pdf/s40728-014-0008-0.pdf