Globalization, Transnationalism & Development Colloquium: The ‘Southernisation’ of Development: are DAC donors moving South?
Speaker: Emma Mawdsley, University of Cambridge
When: Wednesday 26 September, 16.00 – 17.30
Where: TS53, Aula SBE (School of Business and Economics)
Abstract
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 (i) the stronger and more explicit claim to ‘win-win’ development ethics and outcomes; (ii) the (re)turn from ‘poverty reduction’ to ‘economic growth’ as the central analytic of development; and (iii) related to both, the explicit and deepening blurring and blending of development finances and agendas with trade and investment.
Emma Mawdsley holds a BA and PhD in Geography and currently is a reader in Human Geography at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Newnham College, where she is the Director of the new Margaret Anstee Centre of Global Studies. Her research focusses on the politics of international development. Her research included the World Bank’s World Development Reports, Development NGOs, the US Millennium Challenge Account and the impacts and representations of China and India’s deepening relations with Africa. This includes extensive work on ‘South-South Cooperation’, and more recently, an interest in how DAC donors are re-engineering foreign aid and development partnerships. She has recently started working on issues around financialisation and development.
Upcoming GTD colloquia:
- Wednesday 17 October 2018: Olivier van Beemen (Author ‘Heineken in Afrika’)
- Wednesday 21 November 2018: Joris Schapendonk (Radboud University)
- Wednesday 5December 2018: Jean-Michel Lafleur (Université de Liège, CEDEM)
