An ‘age of choice’ for external development finance? Evidence from country case studies

Abstract

The article presents findings from nine country case studies in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, mapping the expanding access of partner country governments to external development finance beyond official development assistance. The article analyzes governments' priorities for the terms and conditions of development finance flows they would like to access. The analysis finds that (1) Chinese official finance is the largest component of external development finance flows beyond official development assistance (ODA) in the countries analyzed, far larger than global figures would suggest, (2) partner countries welcome more choice and more finance, (3) countries identify ownership, alignment with national priorities, speed of project delivery, portfolio diversification as key priorities, and (4) the rise of providers such as China has increased the potential bargaining power of recipient countries visà-vis more traditional donors. K E Y W O R D S Aid, country ownership, development co-operation, future of development co-operation, official development assistance, South-South co-operation O30 | PRIZZON et al.

Exploring the nexus between business activity and development aid in favor of the development agenda

“…Since the beginning of the 2000s a “new age of choice” has arisen (Prizzon et al, 2017), as the range of aid sources of development finance has enlarged with new countries (e.g., India, China) playing an increasing relevant role. As before said, in some cases the donors' commitment with recipients' needs keeps clearly neglected for the shake of their own economic interests (Harris & Vittorini, 2018).…”

Development Cooperation in the Context of Contested Global Governance

“…2. Academic and policy literature has analysed different elements of these changes, such as the proliferation of development actors (Zimmermann and Smith 2011) and the diversification of development finance (Prizzon et al 2017). Other researchers have investigated how the underlying rationale of the policy field itself has been changing, for instance through concepts such as "beyond aid" (Janus et al 2015), "the end of ODA" (Severino and Ray 2009), or "the post-aid world" (Mawdsley et al 2014).…”

Whither the post-Washington Consensus? International financial institutions and development policy before and after the crisis

“…These internal changes are often reflective of, and at times direct responses to, wideranging external imperatives rooted in the transformations taking place in the international development regime (Babb and Chorev 2016;Harman and Williams 2014). The core dynamic here is the accelerated rise of 'emerging powers', which challenges the extant architecture of international development by fostering new avenues of South-South cooperation, thereby offering new sources of development finance, and fuels a heightened sense of policy sovereignty, thereby engendering an increasingly critical attitude towards the twins' policy intrusions in the South (Güven 2017b;Mawdsley 2017;Prizzon et al 2017).…”