Lídia Cabral

Brazil and China in Mozambican Agriculture: Emerging Insights from the Field

Mozambique, a country undergoing rapid transformations driven by the recent discovery of mineral resources, is one of the top destinations for Chinese and Brazilian cooperation and investment in Africa. This article provides an account of the policies, narratives, operational modalities and underlying motivations of Brazilian and Chinese development cooperation in Mozambique. It is particularly interested in understanding how the engagements are perceived and talked about, what drives them and what formal and informal relations are emerging at the level of particular exchanges. The article draws on three cases (1) ProSavana, Brazils current flagship programme in Mozambique, which aims to transform the countrys savanna, spreading along the Nacala corridor, drawing on Brazils own experience in the Cerrado; (2) the Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre (ATDC); and (3) a private Chinese rice investment project in the Xai‐Xai irrigation scheme, which builds on a technical cooperation initiative. Commonalities and differences between the Brazilian and Chinese approaches are discussed.

Brazil–Africa Agricultural Cooperation Encounters: Drivers, Narratives and Imaginaries of Africa and Development

Brazilian development cooperation is increasingly in the spotlight. Africa is a major destination and agriculture tops the list of priority fields on intervention, with Embrapa leading cooperation projects. But patterns of cooperation in Africa are changing as other public, private and civil society actors enter the realm of cooperation and bring along contrasting narratives and experiences of agricultural development. This article maps the evolving nature of Brazilian development cooperation in agriculture and discusses emerging features of the Brazil–Africa encounter, considering knowledge framings, policy narratives, imaginaries and the motivations driving a diversity of technical and political actors.

Brazil-Africa technical cooperation in health: what’s its relevance to the post-Busan debate on ‘aid effectiveness’?

BackgroundBrazil is rapidly becoming an influential player in development cooperation, also thanks to its high-visibility health projects in Africa and Latin America. The 4th High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan in late 2011 marked a change in the way development cooperation is conceptualised. The present paper explores the issue of emerging donors’ contribution to the post-Busan debate on aid effectiveness by looking at Brazil’s health cooperation projects in Portuguese-speaking Africa.DebateWe first consider Brazil’s health technical cooperation within the country’s wider cooperation programme, aiming to identify its key characteristics, claimed principles and values, and analysing how these translate into concrete projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries. Then we discuss the extent to which the Busan conference has changed the way development cooperation is conceptualised, and how Brazil’s technical cooperation health projects fit within the new framework.SummaryWe conclude that, by adopting new concepts on health cooperation and challenging established paradigms - in particular on health systems and HIV/AIDS fight - the Brazilian health experience has already contributed to shape the emerging consensus on development effectiveness. However, its impact on the field is still largely unscrutinised, and its projects seem to only selectively comply with some of the shared principles agreed upon in Busan. Although Brazilian cooperation is still a model in the making, not immune from contradictions and shortcomings, it should be seen as enriching the debate on development principles, thus offering alternative solutions to advance the discourse on cooperation effectiveness in health.

Perspectives on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation

The establishment of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC) created the unique opportunity to bring together and explore synergies between South–South cooperation (SSC) and traditional aid, or North–South cooperation. However, the GPEDC lacks support from both sides due to a lack of trust and misconceptions among partner countries. This article discusses the challenges of operationalising the GPEDC as a truly global and inclusive partnership. This is done by analysing differences between North–South and South–South cooperation and the challenges of bringing them closer. Furthermore, the particular reasons of individual SSC providers, the rising powers in particular, for withholding support for the GPEDC are identified and looked at in the context of fundamental differences between SSC and OECD-DAC aid.