2016 Volume 2016 Issue 183 Pages 183_102-183_115
The international development landscape has been changing since the end of the 1990s. This is mainly due to emerging powers or emerging economies which have been remarked as influential countries in the international development arena. As those countries have been carrying out development co-operation with other developing countries based on the idea of mutual benefit, it is more appropriate to call them as emerging development partners rather than development aid donors. China, inter alia, is such a leading development partner and its way of development co-operation is quite different from that of OECD/DAC member countries.
An international development regime has been constructed by the industrialized countries mainly at OECD/DAC. The industrialized countries have formulated rules and procedures about aid giving based on their foreign policy interests. For example, they have imposed political conditionalities such as an emphasis on the respect of human rights or democracy on recipient countries in exchange of giving aid. In contrast to that, emerging development partners do not impose any conditionality but an emphasis on equality, mutual benefits, and non-interference principles. In addition to that, their way of development co-operation which follows investment and trade has brought about economic growth of the recipient countries. Then, such a style of development co-operation has become popular among developing countries, and OECD/DAC members’ foreign aid has been losing support.
With the rise of the emerging powers, developing countries have begun to emphasize the significance of “South-South co-operation”, hoping for development cooperation by emerging powers to realize economic growth. However, this phrase is not new as it was popular in the 1970s when developing countries were struggling to ameliorate the international economic order which had been established by only some industrialized countries. In those days, developing countries held up the term “solidarity” and they acted politically under the banner of “South-South co-operation”.
In order to retrieve its influence in an international development regime, OECD/DAC initiated the launch of a new forum on development co-operation, Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC), even though a similar forum, United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (UNDCF), had been established under the umbrella of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It can be said that the former is led mainly by the industrialized countries and the latter is supported by the developing countries. In other words, the rivalry between “the Global North” and “the Global South” seems to be emerging, competing for the initiative to establish new rules and procedures for development co-operation.
However, the story is not so simple, because the hierarchization in “the Global South” is occurring and the relationship among the countries in “the Global South” is changing from horizontal to vertical. In such circumstances, the true value of the “South-South co-operation” should be reconfirmed in order for the developing countries to become “rule-maker” rather than “rule-taker” for international development co-operation.
