
International Development Cooperation Today
A Radical Shift Towards a Global Paradigm
Patrick Develtere, Huib Huyse, and Jan Van Ongevalle
Beyond the traditional North-South
perspective
Over the past 60 years high-income
countries have invested over 4000 billion euros in development aid. With
varying degrees of success, these investments in low-income countries
contributed to tackling structural problems such as access to water, health care,
and education. Today, however, international development cooperation is no
longer restricted to helping by giving. Instead, it is rather about
opportunities, mutual interests, risk taking, and an inclusive societal
approach. With the arrival of major new actors such as China, India, and Brazil,
and the manifestation of private companies and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
development aid is being eclipsed by new forms of international cooperation, increasingly
accompanied by investments, trade, and give-and-take exchanges.
The agenda
for sustainable development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in
2015 and to be realised by 2030, is a case in point of new influential
frameworks that usher in a global rather than a traditional North-South
perspective.
This book reviews 60 years of international development aid and its relevant actors, outlining today’s challenges and opportunities. Richly illustrated with case studies and examples, International Development Cooperation Today maps successes and failures and synthesises visions and discussions from all over the world. By pointing out the radical shift from the traditional North-South perspective to a global paradigm, this book is essential reading for all practitioners, academics, and donors involved in development aid.
List of figures
List of tables
List of boxes
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
Development
cooperation in an era of globalisation
More and more new actors on the scene: is the sector
still a community?
Big donors, generous donors
More conflicting views and approaches: the arena is getting
tough
More transactional interests: market appeal
Do new donors have other interests?
Everybody from payers to players: the emergence of a
new paradigm
From
colonialism to the Sustainable Development Goals
Colonial warm-up exercises
Technical cooperation and knowledge transfer
Faith in development aid
Development cooperation: aid in a global setting
The Washington Consensus and structural adjustments
International cooperation, the Millennium Development
Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals
Addressing poverty in exchange for debt relief
International development cooperation and Paris:
introducing order to the community and the market
The SDGs and the need for a whole-of-government and
whole-of-society approach
It takes two to tango
Internationally: among specialists
Recipient countries: donor darlings and donor orphans
The
first pillar: official bilateral cooperation
Many small players and institutional pluralism
In search of an institutional foundation for
development cooperation
Decentralisation: to reach the SDGs or also for other
reasons?
The
second pillar: multilateral cooperation
Europe’s development cooperation patchwork
Multilateral cooperation: the UN galaxy fans out
further
The
third pillar: non-governmental development organisations
A movement with many faces, roles, visions and
strategies
Several generations of NGDOs
A sector with many different visions and strategies
A movement with a plural support base
The sector breaks free from the NGDOs
Is the new social movement becoming an established
network movement?
The
fourth pillar: towards a whole-of-society approach
The key players of the fourth pillar
The fourth pillar: the children of globalisation
challenge the children of the North-South
Starting from a different field
From a level ‘telling’ field to joint action
The near and distant future of a whole-of-society
approach
Humanitarian
aid: more dispersed or more networked?
What place for emergency aid?
Overcoming the humanitarian nemesis
Cash-and-carry on the market
The unbearable lightness of the support
for development cooperation
The uneasy relationship with the support base
No (more) aid fatigue?
Popular, yet little understood
Something needs to be done: but by whom?
Time for a new narrative: from development education
towards education for global citizenship
Sixty
years of international development cooperation: where has the bumpy road led
us? 261
Progress, but not for everyone
Is aid future-proof?
Are we really that generous?
Who is receiving aid?
The effectiveness and impact of development
cooperation
Development cooperation: a stumbling-block?
Conclusion: the past will not come back but is still there
Notes
Bibliography
Format: Textbook - paperback
Size: 234 × 156 mm
320 pages
Illustrated b/w
ISBN: 9789462702615
Publication: April 14, 2021
Languages: English
Stock item number: 141489
Jan Van Ongevalle heads the research unit “Global Development” of HIVA – Research Institute for Work and Society of the KU Leuven.
Patrick Develtere has been involved in development cooperation for over 35 years. He teaches international development cooperation at the KU Leuven.
Gemeengoed zijn de nieuwe tendensen in ontwikkelingssamenwerking nog niet, maar de geesten evolueren snel. Overal ter wereld staan frisse, nieuwsoortige initiatieven op de sporen. Patrick Develtere (KU Leuven) en Chris Nshimbi (University of Pretoria), beiden experten in international ontwikkelingssamenwerking, pleiten voor een denken over ontwikkeling dat niet langer op een Noord-Zuidleest is geschoeid. Weg donor, weg ontvanger. Sylvie Walreavens, Tertio, 22 maart 2023
Throughout, International Development Cooperation Today remains eminently accessible in language and layout. Comprehension of basic concepts in international affairs, economics, and sociology are helpful but not required to follow the authors’ arguments. Although it lacks an index, the compendium offers a wealth of insights for students in advanced undergraduate courses. Postgraduate students not yet familiar with the field’s institutional landscape should find it equally enriching and inspiring. Whether or not the authors’ assertion of a radical shift holds, their nuanced and at times witty analysis of how international development cooperation has morphed into a complex web of relations and flows contributes a multifaceted perspective to global debates on development histories, practices, and the field’s uncertain future.
Daniel E. Esser, Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , Fall 2022 , pp. 396 - 399, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0892679422000363
John Vandaele, MO*, herfst 2021, https://www.mo.be/interview/het-gewoon-dom-om-niet-solidair-te-zijn