Ángela de Bethencourt Linares
Opening the door to the relevant world of Development
Cooperation
I have realized that International Development
Cooperation (IDC) sounds familiar to most people, but they do not really
understand what the concept exactly entails. I have the impression that what
first comes to mind when thinking about development cooperation is providing
financial aid to developing countries, which is considered something good, but we
do not know much about it and this is precisely the reason why many times we
distrust IDC. So, I got the ball rolling and I started to research so that I
could find the difference between key concepts in ICD and clear my mind about
this issue we hear about quite a lot. Along the way, I found the difference between
ODA and DC, which are the same just apparently, and some criticism about
Development Cooperation that I hope you find interesting.
In fact, the Official Development Aid (ODA) oversees that
governments contribute to economic development and welfare of development
countries through grants and concessional loans. It is the “gold standard”,
according to the Development Assistance Committee; this is the reason why the
DAC has been modernizing the ODA since 2012. These changes are aimed to reach a
stricter measurement of ODA loans that gives more credibility and a clearer
data to providers. But what is more important, it ensures that ODA is being
allocated efficiently to the most needed countries and it contributes to an
actual development impact[1].
On the other hand, development cooperation (DC) is a broader concept than ODA which
not only includes direct resource transfer as “aid” does, but it considers
other factors such as market flows. DC Institutions are not profited-oriented ones
and explicitly support developing countries to ensure universal social
standards, basic human rights. Additionally, DC promotes the convergence of
developing countries regarding levels of incomes and wellbeing and help these
countries have international public goods. The types of development cooperation (DC) are financial and in-kind transfer, capacity support and policy change, whose
usefulness has been often questioned.
As for in-kind transfer, which is the easiest type to
measure and the one that first comes to people’s mind, is becoming less
relevant in the modern era because it is considered poor value for money and it
does not really contribute much to domestic economies.
Capacity support is, however, more successful than
financial aid nowadays. It consists of actions such as organizational and human
resources, technology cooperation or sharing policy experience. Nevertheless,
these actions do not always entail positive results. The transfer of technology
from advanced to less-advanced countries do not happen because, for example, the
former take advantage of fostering fossil-fuel technologies in the latter
instead of supporting sustainable technologies. As for the organizational and
human resources support, it does not seem to effectively contribute and make an
impact because of the complexity of the organizational and human resources
context. Regarding the disadvantages of sharing policy experience, sometimes DC
agencies have been heavy handed when implementing policies and sometimes the
content of the advice was wrong.
Lastly, policy
change is another type of DC consisting in changing the rules and
activities at a national and international level to secure the constant support
to countries in need. At the national level, wealthier countries may share
knowledge about public policies, so the development agenda is effective. At the international level, it involves
advising about better rules for a global governance and a more equitable
distribution of development opportunities and international public goods. [2]
That said, policy change goes hand in hand with policy implementation: the leaders and
implementing agencies must implement the policies to meet the objectives desired.
In the case of educational change, it is a complex social issue that requires
understanding and empathy from the implementing actor, who tend to be biased
because of their own prior values and beliefs. So, for a real change in
educational policy, they would need to consider the use of new materials, of
new teaching approaches, the possible alteration of beliefs, but firstly they
must not forget to come to a shared meaning of educational change and commit to
do it[3].
Another
criticism that I have read a few times before is the fact that decentralized
efforts of individual entrepreneurs and firms of the free market are not
effective. The uniting role of the government is key to really achieve economic development of the
developing countries. The importance of the government relies on the
capacity of providing public goods, incentives and sanctions when needed.
Economic development is about finding the synergy between the state and the
market provided that the intervention of the state is well done. As for the
private sector, developing or aid-dependent countries need more searchers of
economic potentials and opportunities in productive companies rather than simply
planners of strategies. [4]
As we can see in DC, there are disadvantages and failures
when wealthier countries provide support to poorer countries. But lessons can
always be learnt from the mistakes and flaws provided that the DC actors are
willing to improve. Clearly, the lessons would involve a closer coordination
between the government and the private sector and a better sense of undertaking
when it comes to looking for opportunities for countries in need. Other issues
as the types of DC could also be improved as well as some types of cooperation
should be fostered over others which are considered less efficient nowadays, -
as I have discussed before, policy chance and capacity before are more
successful than financial and in-kind transfer. Other than that DC will always
be a central element to international community since it aims to preserve basic
human rights and global social standards in countries where the undeveloped
environment is not able to ensure. Voilà! the reason why I thought about
writing about the concept of Development Cooperation so we can all be aware of
its relevance in the international relations world. I hope you learnt and
enjoyed the reading.
[2] http://archive.ipu.org/splz-e/nairobi16/policy-brief.pdf
[3] http://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/The%20Nature%20of%20Policy%20Change%20and%20Implementation.pdf
[4] https://www.diis.dk/files/media/publications/import/wp2009-34_refraiming_the_aid_debate.pdf
Angela, this blog is mostly descriptive so it is not really clear what you think about development cooperation. The purpose of a blog is usually to present an opinion or position on an issue. So, after your research, what would you say are the best and worst aspects of IDC? Prof. C. Freres
ResponderEliminarAs I see it, the main worst aspect is aid workers being biased when implementing or changing development policies without considering the culture, personal circumstances of the needed. That is why sometimes recipients perceive development measures as impositions. For instance, Structural Adjustement Programmes (SAPs) have failed in some case to really improve the economic situation of a country because they were too strict, and the NGOs efforts to balance the strict measures were not enough. I reject another negative aspect of international cooperation, which is the fact that people from the rich northern countries perceive poor southern countries with superiority. I think this position will never see the real capabilities of people in need and will not allow good-quality aid. Without a doubt, an aspect that is clearly negative is the bad practices of donors whenever they use IDC to simply gain international reputation and benefit from it, as well as countries that fail to involve in projects with a good planification which efficiently allocates the resources. Lastly, a bad issue which I fear is unavoidable is the lack of understanding between aid workers and recipients because of the tremendous cultural shock.
ResponderEliminarRegarding positive aspects of IDC, I could mention a long list of them, but I will go through the most important ones in my view. Firstly, the increase of a country’s competitiveness and a reinforced position both at a national and international level. Secondly, IDC empowers developing countries socially thanks to the progress in education, and therefore in productiveness of the workers, which will improve their working conditions. Hence, citizens have access to more resources and their living conditions become better, ultimately. That I why, I believe that one of the most positive aspects of IDC is the global trend of capacity support. In short, the transfer of knowledge and technology from developed or emerging countries to developing countries (especially through South-South cooperation) since, nowadays, innovation goes hand in hand with development.