Turkey’s Foreign Aid to Africa: An Analysis of the Post-July 15 Era

Turkey as an emerging donor in the development community: The Turkish‐type Development Assistance Model (TDAM)

“…There is clear evidence in the TİKA reports that Turkey has pursued different benchmarks in disbursing aid, ranging from the religious, political, or territorial proximity of the recipient country to the humanitarian conditions in the target state. In conjunction with pure normative sentiment towards conflict‐torn and disaster‐stricken areas in terms of value systems (Turhan, 2021) such as “ethical foreign policy” and “humanitarian diplomacy” as seen in Somalia (Bayer & Keyman, 2012, p. 85), the economic incentive with the export‐based embeddedness of Turkish firms in recipient countries (Zengin & Korkmaz, 2019, p. 109) is also a revealing factor, with Turkish corporations seeking alternative beachhead markets in various parts of the world. According to quantitative research, Turkish foreign aid in post‐2004 humanitarianism in predominantly Muslim areas and in the wider world has significantly overcome much of the international alignments and focus on co‐ethnicity that long dominated Turkey’s foreign aid motivations (Kavakli, 2018, p. 614).…”

“…This provides a metaphorical bridge between rather different geographies and gives Turkey a hybrid and ambiguous identity (Yardımcı, 2019, p. 350). As the pendulum swings back and forth across the North-South divide, the Turkish model of aid has been highlighted as distinct (Altunişik, 2014;Apaydin, 2012; Cihangir-Tetik Müftüler-Baç, 2018, 2021Kavakli, 2018;Zengin & Korkmaz, 2019), "moving toward new horizons of life delinking from the global North" (Levander & Mignolo, 2011, p. 3), obscuring several features of the new foreign aid landscape. Refusing to be part of the orthodox binary of weak South vs strong North, Turkey's approach of "highlighting its exceptionality through rhetoric and deeds contributes to a de facto 'delinking' from the established setup … it's 'North' or 'South' is not described as horizontal, not even in theory, but best referred to as being useful and practical or exemplary and ground-breaking" (Haug, 2020b, p. 138).…”

Assessing the EU’s and Turkey’s Triangular Development Cooperation partnership in the Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Second, from the perspective of Turkey-Africa relations, the existing literature has extensively focused on three broad issue areas, namely trade (Dipama &Parlar Dal, 2021; Donelli, 2018; Parlar Dal & Dipama, 2020), foreign and security policy (Akpınar, 2013; Aras &Akpınar, 2015: 230–247; Cannon, 2016; Donelli 2018; Donelli & Cannon, 2021; Kardas, 2012:1–16) and development cooperation (Aras & Akpınar, 2015; Aras, 2017; Donelli, 2021; Belder & Dipama, 2018; Dipama & Belder, 2014; Akpınar, 2021; Turhan, 2021; Özkan, 2013: 578; Özkan, 2012, 2016 & 2017). The bulk of literature on the issue of development cooperation from Turkey’s perspective has focused on examining the patterns and motivations of Turkey’s development aid policies towards the SSA (Aras &Akpınar, 2015; Aras, 2017; Akpınar, 2021; Belder & Dipama, 2018; Donelli, 2018; Donelli, 2021; Murphy & Woods, 2014; Özkan, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017; Özkan 2018; Parlar Dal, Dipama & Belder, 2014), without going further into investigating the implications for the EU and the TDC.…”

“…Nonetheless, this claim should not be exaggerated, especially in light of Turkey’s aid to the SSA in the post-July 15 era. Although Turkish leaders justified the closing down of the Gulenist schools in the SSA following the failed coup d’etat by referring to Turkey’s political strategies of combating Gülen-linked activities (Aras, 2017:10; Official website of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey, 2017), it remains obvious however that the Gulen factor has not impacted on the pattern of allocation of Turkey’s foreign aid to the SSA (Turhan, 2021:796). For instance, Ethiopia, an East African country which has not yet officially handed over the Gulen Schools to the Maarif Foundation ranked among Turkey’s top aid recipient countries for the period between 2015 and 2020 (See Table 2 above).…”