China and Brazil as Southern Africa’s Non-Interfering Development Partners: Rhetoric or Reality?

Abstract

China and Brazil have different approaches to development co-operation. Both countries, however, resist and challenge the west’s dominance of the aid effectiveness agenda and perceived authority on development knowledge. This article explores how Chinese and Brazilian views on recipient–donor relations, policy conditionalities and the role of non-state actors in development influence their delivery of development assistance to southern Africa. It finds that, despite their views on the importance of policy autonomy for beneficiaries and their critiques of the west, China and Brazil are indirectly, if not unintentionally, imposing their ideas about state-led development on African countries. Consequently, African countries are now in the position where they have to re-examine whose knowledge defines and drives development practice, the balance of power in development partnerships, and the challenges faced in trying to maintain ownership of the development process.