The Global Development Institute Lecture Series is pleased to present Dr Emma Mawdsley, Reader in Human Geography and Fellow of Newnham College to discuss "The Southernisation of Development? Who has 'socialised' who in the new millennium?" A more polycentric global development landscape has emerged over the past decade or so, rupturing the formerly dominant North-South axis of power and knowledge. This can be traced through more diversified development norms, institutions, imaginaries and actors. This paper looks at one trend within this turbulent field: namely, the ways in which ‘Northern’ donors appear to be increasingly adopting some of the narratives and practices associated with ‘Southern’ development partners. This direction of travel stands in sharp contrast to expectations in the early new millennium that the (so-called) ‘traditional’ donors would ‘socialise’ the ‘rising powers’ to become ‘responsible donors’. After outlining important caveats about using such cardinal terms, the paper explores three aspects of this ‘North’ to ‘South’ movement. These are (a) the stronger and more explicit claim to ‘win-win’ development ethics and outcomes; (b) the (re)turn from ‘poverty reduction’ to ‘economic growth’ growth as the central analytic of development; and related to both, the explicit and deepening blurring and blending of development finances and agendas with trade and investment.

1. The ‘Southernisation’ of Development:
are the DAC donors moving South?
Emma Mawdsley
University of Cambridge

2. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/
economy/2018/10/penny-mordaunt-
hints-cuts-foreign-aid-spending-reality-
very-different

3. https://www.ft.com/content/40d7ee
e4-bdc1-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5
23 September 2018

5. Hart’s schematic of the IPE of d/Development

6. 
Bandung
Conference
Non-Aligned Movement
Demand for a New International Economic
Order (NIEO)
South-South Development Cooperation
Hart’s schematic of the IPE of d/Development

7. 
Bandung
Conference
Non-Aligned Movement
Demand for a New International Economic
Order (NIEO)
South-South Development Cooperation
Hart’s schematic of the IPE of d/Development
What now?

8. Argument
• Convergence, collaboration, competition, cooption all evident within
the international development landscape
• Much of the focus has been on the question of ‘South to North’,
whether from a perspective of perceived desirability (e.g. Manning
2006) or concern (e.g. Abdenur and Fonseca 2013; Curtis 2013).

9. Expectations of socialising the South
China is big, it is growing, and it will influence the world
in the years ahead. For the United States and the
world, the essential question is – how will China use its
influence? To answer that question, it is time to take
our policy beyond opening doors to China’s
membership into the international system: We need to
urge China to become a responsible stakeholder in
that system. China has a responsibility to strengthen
the international system that has enabled its success.
Robert B. Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State
Remarks to National Committee on U.S.-China Relations
New York City, September 21, 2005

10. Argument
• Convergence, collaboration, competition, cooption all evident within
the international development landscape
• Much of the focus has been on the question of ‘South to North’,
whether from a perspective of perceived desirability (e.g. Manning)
or concern (e.g. Abdenur and Fonseca 2013; Curtis 2013).
• What about ‘North to South’?
• Case Study: UK

11. Problematising ‘Southernisation’
• Methodological nationalism?

12. Problematising ‘Southernisation’
• Methodological nationalism?
• Essentialising North/South
• Which ‘South’? Cuba or China, Brazil or Botswana?
• Which ‘North’? Norway or USA? Japan or New Zealand?

13. Problematising ‘Southernisation’
• Methodological nationalism?
• Essentialising North/South
• Which ‘South’? Cuba or China, Brazil or Botswana?
• Which ‘North’? Norway or USA? Japan or New Zealand?
• Southernisation or DAC reversion?
• Geostrategic primacy; focus on infrastructure and growth; the value of
authoritarian leadership

14. 2000-2015:
The Millennium
Development Goals

15. ‘MDG era’
• 2000-2015 “represented an unprecedented period of international
agreement about what ‘development’ consists of, and clear targets as
to what was to be achieved” (Willis, 2016)
• Poverty reduction moved to become the ‘central analytic’ of development
• Apparent global consensus
• Partnership, responsibility, reform
• Foreign Aid (Official Development Assistance – ODA) the emblematic form of
financing

16. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and David Hulme (2011)
International Norm Dynamics and the "End of
Poverty": Understanding the Millennium
Development Goals.
Global Governance, 17 (1), 17-36

20. The ‘Aid
Effectiveness
Agenda’,
launched 2005

24. Re-engineering UK foreign aid
1) An increasingly explicit assertion that aid must work in the ‘national
interest’

25. Re-engineering UK foreign aid
“Of course, smart aid isn’t just good for the countries we’re helping, it’s good for
Britain too. If we get development right we are market making and creating new
investment opportunities … This frontier economy strategy is critical for safeguarding
the UK’s economic prospects in the long term … just as it is in helping DFID
delivering on its ambition of eradicating poverty”
Justine Greening, January 2014

26. Re-engineering UK foreign aid
“We will be driven by the wish to promote Danish foreign and domestic policy
interests at one and the same time” (Denmark, 2016)
“Our mission is to combine aid and trade activities to our mutual benefit” (The
Netherlands, 2013)

27. Discursive framings of development cooperation
Western donors Southern development cooperation
partners
Charity Opportunity
Moral obligation to the unfortunate Solidarity with other Third World
countries
Expertise based on superior
knowledge, institutions, science and
technology
Expertise based on direct experience
of pursuing development in poor
country circumstances
Sympathy for different and distant
Others
Empathy based on a shared identity
and experience
The virtue of suspended obligation, a
lack of reciprocation
The virtue of mutual benefit and
recognition of reciprocity

28. Discursive framings of development cooperation
Western donors Southern development cooperation
partners
Charity Opportunity
Moral obligation to the unfortunate Solidarity with other Third World
countries
Expertise based on superior
knowledge, institutions, science and
technology
Expertise based on direct experience
of pursuing development in poor
country circumstances
Sympathy for different and distant
Others
Empathy based on a shared identity
and experience
The virtue of suspended obligation, a
lack of reciprocation
The virtue of mutual benefit and
recognition of reciprocity
DAC today with (MICs and FEs)
Opportunity
Development partnerships
Expertise in technical, legal and
financial sectors; and in ‘traditional’
development in 3rd countries
Collaborating partners
Win-win and mutual benefit

29. Re-engineering UK foreign aid
2) (Re-)centring (private sector-led) economic growth
“It is my intention to recast DFID as a government department that
understands the private sector, that has at its disposal the right tools
to deliver and that is equipped to support a vibrant, resilient and
growing business sector in the poorest countries. To do this we will
need to add new types of people with different skills.”
• Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State, speech at the LSE, 12 October 2010

30. Wealth creation moves to the centre
• DFID: New Private Sector Department (2011); new Director General for Economic
Development; Economic Development Strategic Framework (January 2014)
• More funding for the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC)
• New instruments of lending (e.g. returnable loans; DFID should “have the characteristics
of a Sovereign Wealth Fund”)
• E.g. 2013: launch of Impact Investment Fund
• New staff, contractors, programmes, funding levels and directions

31. Justine Greening MP announcing
the launch of a new partnership
between DFID and the London
Stock Exchange Group, 27 January
2014, to support capital market
development in sub-Saharan Africa

32. “This is a win-win partnership. It
means the best run stock exchange
in the world, our stock exchange
right here in London, will be
offering their expertise to a region
where capital markets are in their
infancy. And it also means the LSEG
will have a fantastic, positive
relationship with these frontier
economies as they take off.”

33. Re-engineering UK foreign aid
3) Development diplomacy
• Maintaining DFID’s high standing but to a wider and different
audience
• UK’s role as one of the three co-chairs of the Global Partnership for
Effective Development Cooperation
• David Cameron one of the three co-Chairs of the UN High Level Panel
on post-2015
• Creating innovative partnerships with India and China

35. Re-engineering UK foreign aid
4) Re-defining and re-routing ‘ODA’ (foreign aid)
http://devinit.org/post/aid-spending-by-development-
assistance-committee-dac-donors-in-2016/

36. • ODA should be re-tuned to leverage and catalyse larger private sector flows
• New forms of finance, leveraged by ODA, will provide the necessary billions
to achieve global development
• Development institutions shouldn’t act as ‘aid agencies’, but as portfolio
managers of financial assets, to let them work in partnership with e.g.
Sovereign Wealth Funds, venture capital, private equity funds, investment
banks etc.
• New forms of state-capital hybrids
• Require financial logics and narratives of risk and reward e.g. Ebola Bonds,
Development Impact Bonds etc

37. “The launch earlier this month of the first rupee-denominated bond in
London is an example of the close and growing economic cooperation
between the UK and India and underlines the capital’s status as a
leading global hub for innovative finance … The new UK support for
India’s economic development – including two venture funds and
equity investments in innovative businesses – will help 2 million more
people across the country access the finance they need to get jobs, start
businesses and support their families. Investing in India’s private sector
benefits India’s poorest people while also generating a return on
investment for the UK, helping to build a more prosperous future for
both countries”.
Priti Patel (2016) Sec of State for International Development

38. Carroll and Jarvis (2014:538) argue that:
… risk mitigation for capital (including financial capital) – that is the
escorting of international capital by multilateral development
agencies into frontier and emerging market settings – has itself
become a valued form of development policy, making many (often
large) infrastructure projects and other investments proceed with
alacrity.

39. Conclusions: UK
• Reinvention of international development, not redundancy
• UK seeking a leadership role, institutionally and ideationally, within a more
multipolar field
• Seeking strategic partnerships with BICS, MINTS, but also ‘frontier markets’
(e.g. Ethiopia); while re-engineering ‘traditional’ alliances e.g. with India
• Paradox of stronger national interest in a period of (apparent) declining
public and political support
• Economy, growth and finance are core targets
• Significant restructuring of DFID/existing norms and architecture
• Can this be sustained in the face of considerable public, media and political
opposition?

40. ‘Southernisation’?
• Cautions:
• Legacies, institutional inertia, legal binds, cultures, structural positions (e.g.
DAC): none can be completely unpicked
• Different Southern partners themselves changing e.g. growing intervention,
more debate about transparency and accountability, collaborations, aligned
interests
• A reversion to the status quo ante (albeit with very different contexts and
actors)?

41. Modernisation theories:
• Techno-based optimism
• Central focus on economic growth
• Infrastructure
Dependency theories:
• Re-embedding poorer countries in unequal exchange and
trade relations
• Rising debt
Aid practices/critiques
• Tied aid
• Primacy of ‘national’ interests
• Policy-making returns to foreign policy, Treasury and
trade

42. 
Bandung
Conference
Non-Aligned Movement
Demand for a New International Economic
Order (NIEO)
South-South Development Cooperation
Hart’s schematic of the IPE of d/Development
What now?

43. 
Bandung
Conference
Non-Aligned Movement
Demand for a New International Economic
Order (NIEO)
South-South Development Cooperation
Hart’s schematic of the IPE of d/Development
Dollar-Wall St++
(financialisation);
Neo-mercantilism
State-capital hybrids