India’s Engagement in Development and Peacebuilding Assistance in the Post-Conflict States: An Assessment

Yeshi Choedon

doi:10.3389/fpos.2021.637912

Abstract

The emotional and ideological factor to express solidarity with the other developing countries is the main driving factor for India to engage in development assistance. In the changed geopolitical and geo-economic context in the globalized world, the economic factor of access to the market for Indian products and natural resources for its growing industrial sector became the additional motivation. As India does not subscribe to peacebuilding, it has no separate category of peacebuilding assistance. This study’s central focus is on why India’s way of providing development and peacebuilding assistance captured the world’s attention in the 21st century and how India’s ways are different from that of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) countries. It highlights India’s unique guiding principles, approaches, and modalities for development and peacebuilding assistance. It focuses on why the developing countries appreciated India’s development and peacebuilding assistance, although it is not much in terms of volume compared to the Development Assistance Committee countries. It emphasizes the advantages of accepting diversity instead of an attempt for uniformity in peacebuilding assistance.

Highlights

India’s peculiarity as a development assistance provider is that India itself was the major recipient of development assistance from the developed countries and multilateral organizations
Its development assistance was motivated by emotional and ideological reasons to express solidarity with other developing countries. It had earned a rich dividend as India could emerge as the leader of developing countries and could exercise moral power to influence international politics during the Cold War era
The economic motivation to expand the market for Indian products and natural resources for its growing industrial sector became an additional motivational factor for engaging in development and peacebuilding assistance to the developing countries in the globalized era

Summary

INTRODUCTION

India’s peculiarity as a development assistance provider is that India itself was the major recipient of development assistance from the developed countries and multilateral organizations. India has adopted the demand-driven approach to its development assistance in which the development assistance should be in “response to requests from the partner country and focus on addressing prevailing, pressing, and expressed needs” (Arora, 2017: 229) This approach signifies India’s sensitivity to the national interests, socioeconomic realities of its development partners. It is one of the core principles which distinguish the Indian way of development and peacebuilding assistance from that of the DAC countries. The Developing countries, including India, felt that sovereignty been violated by the western donors and the World Bank’s imposition of conditionalities for the assistance and loan These visions and values encapsulated in these principles have stood India in good stead as they demonstrate the uniqueness of India’s development and peacebuilding assistance and significantly enhanced its soft power and geopolitical influence. Lines of credit or concessional loans (managed by Exim Bank of India with the Ministry of Finance as the coordinating institution)

Bilateral trade and investment

Findings

CONCLUSION