OE Watch Commentary: On 23 March the Chinese language website guancha.cn published the accompanying excerpted article discussing the emerging Chinese model for engaging in international development cooperation with African countries. The article was written several months ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, which will be held in Beijing in September 2018. The article argues that mainstream development models are not experiencing success in Africa because they force African countries to rely on resources from abroad, instead of whatever domestic resources the African countries already have. The article claims that China’s own development came from its reliance on domestic resources, so it practices what it preaches in cooperating with Africa countries by making them rely on their own natural resources.
The article also argues that the Western model is overly dependent on Western countries proposing projects to African countries whereas the Chinese “request-based” model requires the African countries to propose plans and then the Chinese government will decide on which plans to support based on their feasibility, the amount of funding required, and whether they promote the development of China’s own domestic industries. The article also notes that Western development models often involve “soft” infrastructure, such as promoting improvement in laws and regulations, business norms, and human resources of recipient countries. China, in contrast, focuses on “hard” infrastructure, such as roads or bridges.
Although the article recognizes that there are some advantages of Western development agencies, the article suggests that China’s model represents the future trend. The article avoids the issue of the connection between development and security cooperation, although it notes that Chinese projects, such as a railway in Djibouti, have been received with great welcome. Presumably, if China’s development cooperation with African countries will be as successful as the article suggests, it could lead to successes in China’s security cooperation with African countries as well. End OE Watch Commentary (Zenn)
Chinese scholars and development practitioners have begun to establish their own theoretical framework to explain China’s aid to Africa and various other forms of cooperation. The ODA of Western countries has established a one-way dependence relationship between the donor and recipient countries, and has a hierarchical and dependent quality relationship while the China-Africa development cooperation established under the framework of South-South cooperation is trying to achieve cooperation between the two parties and equal and mutually beneficial cooperation. This difference in essential.
In the day-to-day operations of ODA, it is often the aid agencies and independent consultants who assisted countries to issue “prescriptions” and formulate assistance programs. On the contrary, in China-Africa development cooperation, it is generally up to the African partners to take the initiative to put forward the required list of projects, while the Chinese select projects based on the feasibility of the project, the amount of funding required, and whether it can promote the development of China’s domestic industries.
Western ODA models are mostly implemented by a unified state aid agency, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development. China-Africa development cooperation does not have a unified aid agency for implementation, but it is promoted through a coordination mechanism between several government departments and policy banks.