`southern Development Partners Have Profoundly Challenged The Enduring Colonial Mentalities And Power Hierarchies That Continue To Frame North-south Development`. Discuss.

During the last decade, the substantial emergence of "Southern development partners' has transcended the old hierarchies of "North-South development` and challenged the Western hegemony surrounding developmental support for the South. As a result Northern countries have been forced to rethink their role in Southern development, testing new institutional configurations, forging new partnerships and seeking new points of entry into the global South. In this essay I will briefly examine how the emergence of "Southern development partners' or "non-DAC' donors, such as China, India and Brazil, have posed such challenges and suggest that whilst non-DAC partners may represent a challenge to the role of the North in Southern development, this is not necessarily a challenge to colonial mentalities and hierarchies, that arguably, due to a variety of political and economic reasons, continue to frame all manner of developmental frameworks.

Whilst traditional DAC donors, such as America and Western European nations, continue to represent a significant role in "Southern development', the emergence of partnerships between non-DAC donors has significantly grown, fuelled by economic growth and a desire for expansion abroad in pursuit of new opportunities and influences. This can especially be seen in Africa, where challenges to the typical development axis of the "South' as "subject' and the "North' as "provider' have been pronounced. Such challenges are seen to particularly emanate from the contrast between non-DAC and DAC notions of partnership, with basic differences between the two revolving around the conditions attached to developmental assistance, the language of aid and the question of identity. China, for example, has proven advantageous when working in Africa as a result of its "unattached' aid policies and avoidance from the trope of a "donor-recipient' binary. In contrast, such power hierarchies have become synonymous with North-South development, with African leaders having a 'real problem with [such] paternalistic arrangement[s] of the so called "donor' and "beggar'' (Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni cited Brautigam 2009). The apparent recognition of equality and mutual benefit from "Southern development partners' thus represents an attractive element of non-DAC donor partnership and has led to reactionary changes in the framework of North-South development.

These changes are themselves indicative of the challenge that non-DAC donors represent. Whilst many assert that it is too early to conclude whether South-South partnerships work well, the challenge to North-South development has forced Northern scholars and officials to consider new policy methods. These include the highlighted importance of economic, social and political contexts, support for countries to find their own path of development (Rodrik 2007) and analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of states in order to avoid a "one size fits all' styled developmental framework (Grindle 2007). This is something that "Southern development partners' have arguably been doing for while, with China, for instance, rarely advising African recipients of assistance to adopt its economic model (Brautigam 2009). Suggestions that motivation for renewed collaborations of North-South development stems from an agenda of retaliation and subjugation of emerging southern donors (Abdenur and Da Fonseca 2013) also adds weight to the argument that the North views "Southern development partners` as a challenge. Similarly, the emergence of debates on "good governance', or 'good-enough governance' (Grindle, 2007), and the increased attention to the role of politics and ownership in development practices, indicates a realisation that specifications of Northern development frameworks, particularly those of privatisation, opening-up of economies and a mindset of, "do as we say not as we did', are inadequate and vulnerable.

Moreover, these changes to North-South development can be construed as attempts to hold on to colonial mentalities and power hierarchies. Vestergaard and Wade (2014) cited Mawdsley (2015), for instance, demonstrates how changes to North-South frameworks, such as the apparent rebalancing of voting rights in the IMF towards greater Southern representation, in fact reflects a concerted retention of power by traditional donors. Furthermore, that Northern policies often remain accompanied with efforts to implement a belief of correct development is symptomatic of

desires to ensure the preservation of power hierarchies and influence over the South. Although the reasons provided by Northern donors for changes to North-South development frameworks tend to focus on effectiveness and sustainability, there are clear broader geopolitical reasons for efforts to find new frameworks of North-South development.

Furthermore, though not without their own shortcomings, the apparent success of Southern development partnerships signals a challenge to developmental support from the North, with particular worry that Northern countries will be undercut by 'rogue donors' supplying 'toxic aid', Naim (2009) cited Mawdesly 2015. A Department for International Development (DFID) report noted, for example, that 'innovative ways must be found to continue to capture the important work emerging' (DFID 2006). This "capturing' not only reflects a strong desire and urgent need to redefine North-South relationships, but attempts to maintain or gain further access to broader economic and political opportunities to which access has been lost. This notion of "capturing' also reflects an exploitative attitude on behalf of the North which is often imposed on non-DAC donors. Western assertions that China is in Africa to only "gobble up its natural resources'1, for example, ignores a much more complex reality and in some instances, is simply not true. Brautigam, for instance, shows that in Nigeria, Chinese companies are active in all sectors of the economy, while it is Western companies that focus mostly on oil. She shows that China has a genuine interest in extending to Africa the lessons it has learnt from its own development, and what may appear to be commercial moves are actually the result of careful thinking about mutually beneficial activities (Brautigam 2009). Should this be true, it would profoundly challenge the exploitative and one-sided colonial mentalities and power hierarchies of North-South development and contrast the breadth and sophistication of South-South development policies with the self-serving and nearsighted thinking of North-South policies.

The "newness' of experiences that non-DAC donors present, however, should not be over-stated, with many features of DAC and non-DAC donor approaches to development being similar. Whilst there is evidence that suggests "Southern development partners' challenge the position of the North in development, evidence to suggest challenges to colonial mentalities and power hierarchies is less pronounced. For example, China's negative impact on human rights and democracy in Africa is evident, with Chinese investors worrying little about such issues, as do many Western firms. Furthermore, when examined, the conceptual frameworks that guide Chinese support is not so dissimilar to that of the North's, and in fact, is often based on its experience as a recipient of Japanese and Western aid (Brautigam 2009). To an extent, all developmental partnerships can arguably be viewed as motivated by the pursuit of increasingly assertive foreign policies as a result of a variety of political and economic reasons. Thus power hierarchies conceivably represent an unremovable characteristic of development support. The North for example, accuses the Chinese of partnering with "Southern` countries in order to spread its influence abroad and open up new business opportunities. Yet, these are exactly the same motives pursued by Western institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF, who grant aid under certain criteria, conditions and vested interests. No strategy can therefore be considered normatively neutral. In this sense, the goals of assistance are the same, but their method of delivery differs between donors. We must be wary, therefore, of any moral claims of partnership, be it from the North or South, as such assistance might simply be a guise for the continued pursuit of power hierarchies, merely presented as 'slightly different "moral' narratives around the creative destruction of "development'' (Mawdsley 2015). If we do not recognise these vested interests of donors, then poor countries may find themselves further locked into an unprofitable framework of extraction and production, reminiscent of colonial times (Mawdsley 2015).

Non-DAC donors still also only represent a small fraction of total global development assistance, with the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, showing that non-DAC donors accounted for between 1% and, in one year, 12% of total global humanitarian assistance between 1999 and 2004 (Manning 2006). Though such figures are often challenged with questions of what

1 http://www.economist.com/node/10795714

can be counted as aid - for example, according to the OECD, transactions whose purpose is primarily export facilitation cannot be counted as aid, which would thus render moot many Chinese projects - when counting all financial flows, both aid and commercial, Europe still remains the dominate source of assistance, ahead of the US and China, thus suggesting that challenges to North-South development have in fact been small. Clearly though, despite South development partnerships accounting for a small percentage of total developmental assistance, it has been significant enough to be a cause for concern.

As shown in this essay, there is certainly evidence to suggest that "Southern development partners' do challenge the enduring colonial mentalities and power hierarchies of North-South development. However, there is disagreement and great controversy between those who see this challenge as a threat, and those who stress the positive aspect of South-South development partnerships and their increasing role in Africa and elsewhere. The majority of non-DAC countries, for example, are themselves developing which places them in a unique position as strategic partners with credibility and relevant recent experience. Though this use of "developing country' status to gather support in the South has led to growing frustration from the North, it is important to examine the strengths and benefits non-DAC donors can offer developmental practices. For instance, China's domestic success in lifting millions out of poverty (largely without foreign aid), is something that decades of Western aid has failed to achieve in Africa, and thus may offer useful lessons not only for developing governments, but Northern institutions and developmental organisations. The West, some argue, should admit their shortcomings and learn from how Southern development partners use investment, trade and technology as levers for development (Brautigam 2009). The appearance of new modes such as "triangular cooperation' suggests that this mindset is finally being realised and a convergence of lessons from new "Southern development partners' and traditional development themes (De Haan 2011) is emerging. Such schemes offer DAC and non- DAC donors, whose relations are typically characterised by disagreement and competition, a setting in which to engage with Southern development. Whilst it can be said that "Southern development partners have profoundly challenged the colonial mentalities and power hierarchies that continue to frame North-South development', recognising the nature and motives behind these challenges will help resolve the contention of whether they should be seen as a threat or whether they offer opportunities to further the effectiveness and efficiency of North-South developmental practices.

References

Abdenur, E. A and Da Fonseca, M. E. M. J (2013) The North's Growing Role in South–&South Cooperation: keeping the foothold, Third World Quarterly, 34:8, 1475-1491

Brä&utigam, D. 2009: The Dragon's Gift: The real story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

De Haan, A. (2011) Will China Change International Development as we know it? Journal of International Development 23 (5), 881-908.

DFID (2006) Making Governance Work for the Poor, London, Department for International Development. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/wp2006/default.asp

Grindle, MS (2007) "Good enough governance revisited', Development policy review 2007 25(5): 553-575.

Manning, R. 2006: Will "emerging' donors change the face of international cooperation?' Development Policy Review, 24 (4), 371-83.

Mawdsley, E. (2015) Development geography 1: Cooperation, competition and convergence between `North` and `South`. Progress in Human Geography.

Rodrik, D (2007), One Economics Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions and Economic Growth (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp.1-10.