New Global Partners: China And India In Sub-saharan African Development?

Over the last fifteen years there has been a growing interest in both popular and academic discourse concerning the 'new global partners' involved in sub-Sahara Africa's (SSA's) development, particularly China and India. While the term 'new' implies that these partners are in some-way different from Africa's 'traditional' global partners, some recent Western scholarship and media has suggested instead that many parallels can be drawn between the two (e.g. Carmody & Owusu, 2007; The New Yorker, 2013). Thus, this essay will undertake the task of examining how SSA's 'new' global partners differ from its 'traditional' partners and what impact they are having on sub-Saharan African development. Foreign involvement in SSA development is neither novel nor straightforward. Its nature and impact have and continue to change through time and is heterogeneous across the region. Thus, in order for any examination regarding this question to have validity, clear boundaries for the analysis must be set. First, this essay will delimit SSA's 'traditional' partners as states and international institutions that have been deeply involved in SSA's development since the mid-20th century widespread achievement of independence from European imperial rule. This coincided with what many consider the birth of the modern concept of development after WWII with the establishment of the Bretton Woods system, the IMF, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in 1944 (Jeffrey, 2013). This includes many members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), for example the USA, Western European states, Australia, and Canada, the MNCs and NGOs that are based in these states, and international institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank and IMF (Southall & Melber, 2009). Second, this essay will only consider 'new' and 'traditional' partner engagement in SSA development since 2000. A valid comparison between 'new' and 'traditional' partner involvement in SSA development would require either an in-depth appreciation of SSA's changing development landscape and economic, political and social climate since the mid-20th century, which is beyond the scope of this essay's length requirements, or, analysing the time period in which all partners under consideration have been 'deeply' engaged in SSA development, thus allowing direct comparisons to be made. While subjective to a degree, it is widely noted that Chinese and Indian involvement in SSA development has seen a sharp increase since the turn of the century. For example, Chinese trade with Africa has increased from just $10billion in 2000 (WSJ, 2011) to $210billion in 2013 (Aljazeera, 2014a), whilst Indian trade with Africa stood at $5billion in 2003 (Jacobs, 2012) and $70billion in 2012 (Times-of-India, 2013)

In order to comprehensively examine how SSA's 'new' global partners differ from its 'traditional' partners and what impact this has had on sub-Saharan African development since the turn of the century, this essay will adopt the following analytical framework, splitting the essay into three broad sections. The first will explore differences in the nature of 'new' and 'traditional' partner led development in SSA, focussing on both quantitative and qualitative differences in the actions taken, the development models espoused, and the symbolism behind their engagement. The second will explore the motives of 'new' and 'traditional' partners in SSA development. The third will assess the impact of SSA's 'new' global partners on its development. Positive development progress at the regional or national scale can mask a worsening situation and worsening inequalities at the local or individual level (Carmody, 2009), thus to comprehensively examine impacts on development, this section will adopt the sub-framework of first exploring impacts on a regional/national-scale, and second, on a local/individual level.