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2016 | Book

A Practitioner’s Perspective on Development Aid Read chapter Read first chapter

Development Aid and Sustainable Economic Growth in Africa

The Limits of Western and Chinese Engagements

Author: Simone Raudino

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Book Series : International Political Economy Series

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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About this book

This book offers an original analysis of the long-term impact of western and Chinese economic and development cooperation policies in Africa. It argues that western Official Development Assistance (ODA) has failed to create viable and autonomous economies in beneficiary countries not (only) because of corruption, inefficiencies and cultural differences, but because it was never meant to do so. Raudino demonstrates, rather, that it was always designed to provide relief measures and nurture political relations rather than create genuinely industrialized and self-reliant economies. Similarly, by analyzing the nature of Chinese economic investments in Africa the author shows that China’s governmental policies hardly represent a revolutionary departure from the cooperation standards set by the West. In making these observations he also taps into the broader question of why wealth continues to be generated unequally across the world. Based on extensive fieldwork, quantitative economic analysis and historical qualitative research, this thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of politics, economics and development studies, as well as to those involved more directly in the aid process.






Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. A Practitioner’s Perspective on Development Aid
Abstract
Raudino offers a wide array of anecdotal evidence from his fieldwork experience as a UN and EU civil servant in Angola (2005–2006), South Africa (2007–2008) and Afghanistan (2013–2016) to introduce some of the critical questions setting the systematic research developed in the book. Why official development assistance (ODA) to Africa—which since the 1960s has costed seven times the value of the Marshall Plan without producing any safe result to speak of—has never been discontinued? Why pro-poor development organizations such as the World Bank are so fiercely contested in “beneficiary” countries? Why the countries that have managed to graduate in the last 40 years—mainly in South-East Asia and the Far East—are those that received the lowest levels of ODA in their history, while implementing public policies that have often been at loggerheads with those promoted by international financial institutions?
Simone Raudino
Chapter 2. The Theory of Economic Development
Abstract
Are developing countries, and particularly African countries, really gaining from their linkages—including Official Development Assistance (ODA)—to developed countries? Answers provided by different academic theories to this straightforward question reach radically different perspectives. Results from quantitative studies correlating ODA levels to GDP growth are surprisingly inconsistent—so much so that they point to completely opposite results. Raudino argues that this is not surprising, considering that ODA accounts for less than 5 % of Balance of Payment relations between developing and developed countries and that these studies focus on specific periods, regions or sectors, while ignoring way more powerful macro-dynamics between these two groups of countries. More generally, looking at academic theories in economics, political science and international relations, Raudino shows how they fail to establish a minimum common ground on matters directly relating to the question on the nature of their relation, if not on the much broader—and in principle easier—question of what kind of public policies developing countries need to adopt in order to expand their economies and create wealth.
Simone Raudino
Chapter 3. The Praxis of Economic Growth: Lessons from History
Abstract
Because economic theory provides such disparate views on normative action in international political economy, Raudino proposes to use the history of economic praxis as a design and implementing guide for public economic policies in low-income countries. By looking at the work of economic historians such as Friedrich List, Joseph Schumpeter, Robert Heilbroner, Ha-Joon Chang and Erik Reinert, Raudino identifies a fil rouge linking successful public economic practices throughout the centuries and across different continents. These can be traced from the dawn of economic development in the modern world—Italian city-states and the Low Lands in the thirteenth century—to the latest countries to successfully graduate in the second half of the twentieth century—including the Asian Newly industrialized Economies (NIEs). These policies can be seen as contributing towards a “virtuous cycle” of economic growth that has given solid proof of empirical validity.
Simone Raudino
Chapter 4. A Quantitative Assessment of Africa’s International Economic Relations
Abstract
Raudino provides an encompassing review of Africa’s international economic relations by collecting key data in African countries’ balances of payments (BoPs), including international transactions of goods and services and primary and secondary income in the current account, as well as foreign direct investments and portfolio investments in the financial account. The chapter also provides estimates of non-BoP variables having a relevant impact upon Africa’s international economic, trade and finance position, including capital flight and migration. “Quantitative assessment of Africa’s international economic relations” concludes suggesting that all the reviewed flows—financial, commercial and human—concur in portraying a picture characterized by a regular transfer of value-adding jobs, trade and investment opportunities from Africa towards its main economic partners, both in the West and in Asia.
Simone Raudino
Chapter 5. A Qualitative Analysis of Africa–West Economic Relations
Abstract
Africa and the West have had intense political and economic relations since the seventh century BC, throughout institutional arrangements as different as trading posts, colonial treaties and relations among sovereign nations standing on (a formally) equal footing. While on the one side such an old, comprehensive, multi-layered relationship cannot simply be interpreted via economic and trade exchanges, interests of an economic nature have always been at the centre of the West’s quest for opening trading routes and exerting political influence. To understand and interpret these interests, Raudino disentangles the economic mechanisms behind the statistics portrayed in the “Quantitative Assessment of Africa’s International Economic Relations”. By reviewing key interests among American and European constituencies influencing foreign relations with Africa and by leveraging historical readings of economic practices as resulting from the review in “The Praxis of Economic Growth: Lessons from History”, Raudino shows how perfectly rational it is for Western donor agencies to avoid assisting Africa in undertaking the same developmental paths they have walked themselves, particularly by setting up productive capacity aimed at exporting goods and services in increasingly higher-capital- and technology-intensive sectors.
Simone Raudino
Chapter 6. A Qualitative Analysis of Africa–China Economic Relations
Abstract
China has had far more superficial relations with Africa than any major European nation: although archaeological findings place the first contact between the two regions during the Sung dynasty (960–1279 AD), it was not until 1413 that the Chinese Admiral Zheng Ho established early trading relations with indigenous populations along the East African coast. Trade between the two continents continued sporadically, while state relations remained at an unofficial level until the end of the nineteenth century. Yet, since the 1990s, China has devised and implemented an extraordinarily comprehensive and efficient strategy to nurture business and political relations with Africa. This relation has been seen by many as revolutionary. By tracing the economic and political interests of key constituencies in Chinese foreign policy, analysing the economic fundamentals of the policies they promote in Africa and picking on significant cooperation sectors, Raudino shows how the fundamentals of China–Africa economic relations do not differ substantially from the fundamentals of West–Africa economic relations.
Simone Raudino
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Development Aid and Sustainable Economic Growth in Africa
Author
Simone Raudino
Copyright Year
2016
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-38936-3
Print ISBN
978-3-319-38935-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38936-3